


Drown The Echoes Out

by Khrysoprase



Category: Shazam! (2019)
Genre: (don't worry Freddy gets all the love he deserves in spite of that), Abandonment Issues, Angst with a Happy Ending, Attempted Murder, Billy's Had Some Bad Experiences, But Everyone Helps Him Recover, Choking game, Dissociation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, Grooming, Guest Appearance by Superman, I swear there is a happy ending, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, M/M, Mentions of Racism, Needs a better summary, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Abuse, Past Relationship(s), Please read with caution, References to the Choking Game, Self-Esteem Issues, Shazamily - Freeform, Therapy, We're Here For The Healing Damnit, cocsa, implied/referenced suicidal ideation, internalized ableism, it's just going to get really dark beforehand, like an eclipse, mentions of bullying, this is RIGHT on that mature/explicit borderline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2020-01-10 20:41:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 45
Words: 126,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18415463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khrysoprase/pseuds/Khrysoprase
Summary: “’Every guy?’" Freddy repeated, surprised. "How many guys have you been with?”“F- three,” he said, in that too-quick autocorrect way that he did whenever he almost lied in Shazam form. Instantly, Freddy got suspicious; Billy could see it in his eyes and a spike of familiar anxiety went through him immediately.Or: Billy's had a rough time when it comes to love and romance, but he always shoved the pain down to focus on finding his mom. Now that he's finally somewhere safe, with people who love him unconditionally, he's finding it hard to keep the past from bubbling up. Hopefully, Freddy and the family can help him find some peace.Or, a better summary from the second act on: The past will try to rise up and swallow you whole, but as they say in Appalachia, it's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.





	1. Three, Not Four

Billy was the least romantic person he knew, so he was kind of expecting to mess things up with Freddy.

He’d never had much sense of how to be smooth. He didn’t know where to put his hands when making out with someone. Nobody had ever explained the concept of working a mood to him or what made a moment romantic, and all in all he thought he did pretty well at it for somebody who sucked at reading signals. They didn’t get, like, zapped by a supervillain or caught by Rosa and Victor or something, so basically, Billy figured that meant he was doing pretty well. He toned down his swearing when Freddy asked. Freddy seemed less prone to panic with Billy around. They were good for each other. It was a comfortable, play-video-games-and-chill kind of dating that Billy was way more into than he wanted to admit.

Every now and again, though, he screwed things up. He said things he didn’t mean, or got horny and frustrated when Freddy was clearly neither of those things, and then he got mad at himself for being hormonal. He finally had someone he cared about who cared about him back and he was going to ruin it. He knew he was. Things never went this right for him and it freaked him out that this was going semi-okay so far. Eventually, the other shoe was going to drop if he didn't make an effort to be a more heroic, less self-centered boyfriend. Thus, Freddy had to put up with a couple of overly long apologies as Billy tried really hard not to picture him walking away just like everybody else.

“Oh my God, dude, it’s not that big a deal,” Freddy groaned when Billy lapsed into another episode of brief panic, putting his hands on the superhero’s shoulders to get him to shut up. “It’s a hard-on, not a personal attack. We’re guys! It happens. Why are you being so weird about this?”

Billy looked anywhere other than at Freddy, whose eyes could pry a lot of truth out of him. “I just don’t want to screw this up, okay? I really messed up with basically every guy I’ve ever been with and I – I – you mean a lot to me.”

 _‘I love you’_ hung, unspoken, in the air between them. Billy hadn’t ever said the words, but he implied them, again and again, in ways that made Freddy want to kiss him silly, the lovable jackass.

Right now, though, Freddy’s mind was preoccupied with a few keywords in that last sentence. “’Every guy?’" Freddy repeated, surprised. "How many guys have you been with?”

“F- three,” he said, in that too-quick autocorrect way that he did whenever he almost lied in Shazam form. Instantly, Freddy got suspicious; Billy could see it in his eyes and a spike of familiar anxiety went through him immediately.

( _He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe and Jesse’s grip on his throat was iron, the frost of the ground was seeping into his skin as the older boy straddled him, weighing him down. He was drowning on land in Jesse's eyes, cold and gray like a frozen ocean. “This is between us, Batson,” he whispered, breath hot on Billy’s face in the cold November air-)_

He shivered, involuntarily.

Freddy drew back – by maybe a few inches, since they were on the bottom bunk of their bed together and there wasn’t much room – and looked at Billy, really looked at him. Even in the low light of the room, he looked surprisingly pale, body now still in a way it rarely was outside of a tense moment in a fight. Every breath he took was quiet, measured and even. Billy was a good liar, compared to Freddy; he could pretend to be calm a lot better than Freddy could any day of the week. That was why the way he couldn’t meet his boyfriend’s eyes and was shifting to arch his body away from him was so alarming. He was clearly trying to play it cool, but he couldn’t quite pull it off right now.

“Three?” Freddy asked, quietly, aiming for calm. “That’s five more than I ever managed. Nobody flirts back with the crippled kid – except you, I mean.”

Billy frowned at him, glancing at him with a flash of familiar protective anger. “Yeah, well, other guys are dicks. You deserve better than that bullshit.”

“I _have_ better,” he replied, grinning, and Billy cringed and smiled at the same time.

“Dude, shut up. Don’t make it weird.”

“We’re age-shifting superheroes, it’s already weird.”

Billy snorted. Freddy took the opportunity to cuddle up to him again. He forced himself to ignore how Billy tensed up, instead grabbing one of his hands in his, made himself not ask questions. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answers. They could just stay like this forever. The thought was tempting; Freddy really didn’t want to hear about whoever Billy used to hang out with, all of whom were probably able-bodied, cool, and good at this romance thing. He didn’t want another reminder of the fact that most disabled people ended up single and that Billy was, long before he was a superhero, cooler than Freddy ever was.

But something about the way Billy had to force his breathing under control scared Freddy, so he swallowed and murmured, “Tell me about them? Maybe you didn’t screw up. Mary’s had boyfriends and they always seem to blame her for their own BS, you know?”

“Um, well…” Billy took a deep breath, searching his memories for safe, shareable details. He settled on the least problematic, to borrow a term from Mary. He really didn’t want to have any conversations about the rest of them. _I can’t lose Freddy, too._ “I don’t know if I can really say much that’ll sound cool or romantic or whatever. First I fell for this guy named Elio, when I was nine. He beat up bullies who picked on me and we’d go hang out after school. Hold hands, explore abandoned buildings and stuff… then he kissed me and I was like, ‘oh, I guess I’m bi’ and that sucked, ‘cause we had super religious foster parents.” Freddy opened his mouth, looking horrified, and Billy cut him off: “It’s cool, my foster parents after that gave me the it’s-okay-to-be-bi speech. Repeatedly. It was the sappiest shit, you have no idea. But if I hadn’t kissed Elio where the foster care staff could see, we wouldn’t have been separated, so. That’s a hundred percent my fault.”

Freddy hugged him close, trying to offer comfort as best he could. “Nah, your foster parents were assholes. You didn’t do anything wrong. Did you ever get to see him after that?”

“Nope. His older sister got custody of him, so he moved up to Maine with her. Which is good,” he clarified, trying not to sound bitter. “It _is_ , because she – she wanted him. And he wanted to be with her. So it’s fine.”

His voice wavered, dangerously.

_(“Yeah, I know,” his mom said, her eyes tired and haunted. “I know, I saw you.”)_

Before his thoughts could get too dark, Freddy kissed him, hard. It was off-center, kind of rough, definitely unpracticed and so sincere that Billy didn’t care. He kissed him back, chasing away the thought that he’d always assumed he’d get Elio’s ending, that his mom would scoop him up the way Elio’s sister had and hold him close. He had a new mom now. A new mom, a dad, brothers, sisters, and a boyfriend who loved him – that was way more than he’d ever dreamed of. That took the edge off of all the disappointment, even if it still stung. Maybe one day it’d stop sucking entirely.

“Why is everyone I like a sappy loser?” Billy muttered, fondly. Freddy glared at him, before they both grinned.

“Yeah, well, Mary says relationships are built on similarities.”

“You suck, Freeman.”

“Love you too, Captain Sparklefingers.”

They let the topic drop, Billy out of desperate desire to do so, Freddy because he could still see the panic in Billy’s eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of abuse goes on in the foster care system between kids. It's not really reported or recorded, for a lot of reasons, so while I believe the movie that Billy's foster parents have historically been great people, I have my doubts he *never* encountered asshole kids.
> 
> And I'll be real, some of this is me lifting from things friends of mine have been through, albeit modified and 1. with their permission and 2. with the promise not to name names in any way, shape or form.
> 
> There will be fluff! It'll get rough before it gets better, though. Healing is like that.


	2. No Such Thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mary is observant. Freddy is loving. And Billy isn't sure what to think.

Of all people, it was Mary who first had an inkling of what might really be wrong. 

When she insisted on driving the other kids to school when it got too cold out for the bus to have decent heat, she saw it. Billy watched the cityscape go by out the window, eyes flickering from passerby to passerby, as always. Pedro vegetated on his music while Eugene read video game reviews on his phone, explaining the ethics of video game journalism to Darla, who understood things in her own childish, innocent way. It was while she was talking with Eugene about how bribing someone for reviews meant the game developers probably weren’t confident and needed more hugs – Darla’s solution for all problems – that it happened. They went by a group of teenagers, and Billy sat bolt upright, eyes wide, hands gripping the seat so hard his knuckles turned white. He swallowed, forcing his breathing back down to something normal, but it was clear he was shaken regardless.

Mary glanced in the rearview mirror. The other kids hadn’t noticed, Freddy too engrossed in his comics and the others in their preferred hobbies. She looked over at Billy, who was trying to watch the disappearing figures in the car door mirror with little success.

_(“Let’s go, kiddo,” Jesse said, out of breath, exhilarated by the rush of running down the street at three-thirty in the morning. “Come on, you gotta see the park at night – it’s like Christmas exploded, c’mon-”_

_“We’re gonna be in so much trouble,” Billy laughed, letting himself be tugged along, his hand in Jesse’s, Jesse’s coat on him, smelling like cigarette smoke and suede. “One day they’re gonna transfer me where you can’t find me, you know.”_

_He laughed, a rarity for him, voice light and clear like he was so much purer and kinder than he actually was. “Yeah, right! No such thing, Bill. I can find you anywhere. Love’s a fucking awesome motivator. Imma hunt you down like a private eye, forever!”_

_Billy nearly tripped over his own feet. Love. He’d said love. Nobody had said that to him in a long, long time. And Jesse had thrown it out there with so much authority in his voice, with the certainty that people used to quote laws or Bible verses, like it was a cold, hard fact. Winter was cold, traffic didn’t exist at three-thirty in the morning, and Billy Batson had somebody who loved him._

_The only thing tethering him to the Earth was Jesse’s hand, and for a moment, everything was perfect.)_

“Billy? Are you okay?” Mary asked, voice hesitant and careful, testing the waters.

She didn’t miss the way his eyes lingered on the sign for the local park. “’m fine.” 

If they’d been somewhere private, she might’ve called him on the lie, but they weren’t. There was no telling how the other kids would react to any hint things weren’t okay with Billy, not after they’d all gotten kind of protective after what happened with Billy’s mom. Darla had already made Billy a cute welcome-to-the-family card, Eugene had tutored him in the ways of Pokemon, Pedro made him a playlist called F*ck The Police, We’re Superheroes that was clearly an attempt to boost his spirits, and Freddy… well, she was sure Freddy _thought_ he was hiding his relationship with Billy well. Freddy was head over heels for him already, too thrilled to have a best friend to realize how much deeper the bond went, or maybe he did and he was just bad at expressing it. Either way, they were closer than she’d ever expected them to get. Billy needed that kind of stabilizing presence in his life to go undisrupted, for now, anyway.

Of course she had no inkling of what the root cause of the problem was. Foster kids had a huge range of issues stemming from a vast number of causes. Mary wasn’t sure if she’d ever guessed someone’s problems correctly, so she wasn’t about to start now. But regardless of what it was that was wrong, she didn’t know if any of them were ready to hear it. Too much attention could really freak a kid out; Mary had helped enough kids out of abusive foster homes before she ended up with Victor and Rosa to know not to force things. She’d seen kids run when pushed too hard, too fast for details.

He was too important to her to risk losing him that way. He was too important to all of them.

Instead she reached over and squeezed his hand. “I’m here if you need to talk, okay?”

He glanced at her, took a deep breath, and nodded. “…thanks.”

 

* * *

 

 

It took another week of gentle prodding, and then Freddy’s speculation, to get him to move on to mentioning the elusive Guy Number Two.

“Was he the one who taught you to pick locks? Do you look at locks and go ‘ah man the feels’?” Freddy babbled, getting a groan out of his boyfriend who, unfortunately, shared a room with him and thus couldn’t escape. “Did he help you look for your mom, and like, you fell for each other in the process? There’s this one comic, it’s called Tomboy, and it’s about a girl superhero who helps people, and one time she helped out this guy like that-”

Honestly, it was amazing he lasted a week. “Freddy, write romance novels. People will totally pay you to be weird,” he told him, rolling his eyes. “He didn’t – well, actually he kind of helped. He didn’t try to get me to stop, at least, and he ran interference while I did stuff. But that was it. And it was _super_ unromantic, seriously.”

“How is that not romantic?” Now he was confused. It was romantic as hell in the comics!

“Because it was depressing, okay? It sucked to keep finding leads and get nothing and then go back to his house and be miserable with him. I don’t know how he didn’t get tired of it sooner, actually. Wyatt put up with so much of my emo whiner phase.” He winced at the memory of how uncool he’d been, always falling apart on him. “I mean, you dealt with some of that, too, but not a ton of it.”

Freddy was never sure how to address the topic of Billy’s whirlwind emotions. He totally had a right to be hurt and mad and whatever over what happened. But they were teenagers. It was uncool to be a mess at their age. In Freddy’s opinion, it was also super justified. After some thinking, he’d come to the conclusion that while superheroes on teams usually shared their problems with each other, Billy totally had a right to keep it to himself. Lone, brooding superheroes always took a while to defrost and get used to having friends (or boyfriends, in this case).

“You have to deal with my comics thing,” he pointed out diplomatically. “Also, what kind of dorky name is _Wyatt_?”

Billy raised an eyebrow at him. “We’ve got kinda dorky names, too. Plus we suck at superhero names. I don’t think we get to make fun of him, dude. My middle name-” He cut himself off, suddenly, looking startled by what he’d said. “Nevermind. Let’s go back to sucking at algebra – we’ve got to turn this in tomorrow.”

Freddy glanced around, despite their door being closed and locked while they attempted their homework. “I’m not gonna tell. Oh! It can be, like, our code. If a shapeshifting villain tries to imitate you, I’ll ask him to tell me.”

“It’s not that it sucks,” he said slowly, turning over ideas in his mind with what Mary called his Serious Superhero face. “I, uh, I got bullied at one foster home ‘cause… I’m not white? My dad wasn’t. So I have a not-white middle name.”

“…our parents aren’t white and neither are most of our siblings,” the younger superhero pointed out, not unkindly. “Plus I’m one-fourth Lenape. Uh, that’s a Native American tribe,” he added when Billy gave him a blank look. “So I can really, really promise you that nobody’ll give a crap here. It’s 2019, Billy.”

Billy looked at him, staring him down with an uncanny, uncomfortable intensity for a moment before his expression turned soft and vulnerable. “It’s 2019 and my middle name is Hassan.”

Freddy’s eyes widened. “Oh – _oh_. Like, Arabic?” He forced himself up despite his crutches being out of arm’s reach, pulling an unwilling and mildly annoyed Billy into a hug. “You know you wanna hug me back. Just do it, Red Lightning.”

“I hate that name,” he muttered, hugging him back with a sigh. “See, this is why – I don’t know if I loved Wyatt, but even though we gave each other a lot of shit, he never, ever went there. He hated it when people did. It made me feel like somebody gave a crap about me.”

“I do,” he said firmly, drawing Billy closer like he could retroactively protect him. “We all do.”

_(Jesse sat on a steel beam, under the bridge. He’d climbed up with a deftness that spoke to a lifetime of trying to get away from people. Billy, never one to back down from a challenge, struggled up to him, rubbing his hands raw on the metal in the process. The support beam was cold despite the early autumn’s latent, summer-like heat._

_He’d been hiding up here for an hour, waiting for Billy. He was patient, perched like a predatory cat on the unyielding steel, a cigarette in his mouth, either to take the edge off the nerves a normal person would’ve been feeling or to celebrate. Billy couldn’t tell. He didn’t ask._

_Finally, he forced himself to speak. “You could’ve killed Wyatt.”_

_“He turned on you, kid. He’s an asshole.” Jesse stretched, raising his arms up above his head and cracking his knuckles, aiming for unconcerned when really, there was something else there, something unknowable and disconcerting._

_“Yeah, but – I’m serious, Jay, you could literally have killed him? That’s a thing you just almost did.” He tried to stress the words in a way they’d land, watching as Jesse’s silver-grey eyes took in the river._

_His hand found Billy’s and gripped it in an iron vice. “Nobody gives a damn about us. We’re invisible, Billy. We’re nothing. You think anyone’s going to stand up for you if I don’t? You think the rest of these jackasses won’t turn on you when their friends decide you aren’t cool? Somebody’s gotta keep you safe.”_

_Billy bit his lip, frowning, and said nothing._

_“You could jump into this river right now and nobody would even notice. I would, but you ever pause and realize how it’s taking longer and longer between runaway sessions for them to get you back? Kids have an expiration date in the foster care circuit, Bill,” he explained, patiently, eyes catching the light of cigarette embers and glowing in the close proximity. “Nobody’ll want you in a year, maybe two, tops. Your only chance is to learn to look out for yourself – and if you can’t, I’ll look out for you, for your own sake.”_

_He didn’t know why that didn’t feel remotely comforting. “My mom gives a crap about me. She’s out there, Jay.”_

_“Is she.” There was no question in that, only a flat statement of doubt. “’Cause from where I’m sitting, the only person I see out here with you is me.”_

_Billy shuddered from the cold, shifting closer. Jesse’s arm snaked around his waist, as it had many a time before. He was familiar, in a comforting way. He smelled like home more than any house ever had. On instinct, the younger boy buried his head in the blond's neck, breathing in the warmth as the cool steel under them chilled him from the outside in. Jesse had flaws, but he had outlasted the last two guys Billy had thought were the best thing ever, easily. Nobody else ever tried to keep in touch when he got switched into a different foster home. No one else seemed to give a crap. His mom – his mom would care, did care, she just wasn’t here yet.  
_

_Until then, Jesse was all he had.)_

“Billy? Earth to Billy, you’re spacing out on me.” Freddy squeezed his shoulders, trying to get him to stop whatever he was doing.

“Freddy?” his voice was a careful kind of hopeful, his brown eyes a little clouded by the past replaying in his head. “Promise me something?”

Well, that was awkward, but Freddy could see it wasn't the time to point that out. “Yeah?”

“Promise me you'll always stay with me? Even if I end up being really unpopular or depressing or whatever.”

Freddy didn't even hesitate.

“I promise.”


	3. Mostly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Victor is a concerned father, Billy is arguably suffering from PTSD, and mistakes were very definitely made.

He had wanted to scream for help. 

Billy woke up not quite screaming, not able to find his voice, only able to gasp for air. He couldn’t get enough, couldn’t keep it in his chest, pushed it out as soon as he got it in. Sweat coated his body, hot and unwelcome. The walls curved inwards. Out. He had to get out of here, immediately. No time for a coat, no time for quiet, only escape, out, out, taking the stairs three at a time, jumping the last five, flying. All five seconds it took to put his shoes on dragged on for eternities, and he still couldn’t breathe, the air was too hot, searing into him, he needed out-

The winter air smacked him in the face as he all but threw himself out the door. Not wanting to run around the city at night – too many memories of Jesse, there, in the orange streetlights’ glow, in the way sneakers sounded hitting the pavement in the near-silence, and God, how far had they run that evening before he’d finally wrenched himself free to have a proper freakout? – he ended up pacing in the yard, running his hands through his hair. Breathing wasn’t getting easier, somehow. The cold clawed at his throat. When he had his Shazam powers, when he and Freddy had run around trying them out that first night, nothing had reminded him of the past at all. Everything was new, pure, brighter, just because Freddy was with him. Freddy had fixed everything without trying.

_(“I can’t deal with you anymore, okay?!” Wyatt had shouted, Wyatt, who never raised his voice, who always kept his cool, and Billy stumbled back, hurt. “I’m so tired of you doing this! Other people matter, Billy! You’re not the center of the universe! You think people think you’re uncool because you’re some victim, but you’re just a spoiled asshole! Go run back to your boyfriend!”_

_And what scared Billy more than the anger in his eyes were the whispers that erupted across the school cafeteria, sealing his fate as the new target for bullies here in an instant.)_

He couldn’t go talk to Freddy. He’d freak him out. That wasn’t fair when Freddy had always been an awesome friend and a cool boyfriend. Billy still felt bad about the lunch thing, no matter how many times Freddy said that meeting Superman had made up for it. Pacing in the snow, he felt a disorienting sense of disdain for himself rise up inside. For every single thing Freddy had done for him, Billy had made his life harder in some way.

More importantly, he couldn’t picture Freddy wanting to hang around if he knew. The whole thing was disgusting. He was disgusting. If his throat wasn’t closing up, he’d Shazam up and bolt, get out of here until morning, after he’d done something superheroic. He needed to do something to drive all of this out of his head. He was Billy Batson, he had fought off Sivana, he had battled Deadly Sins, he found his mom with some help from his family, he was so much more than what Jesse had told him he was. He hated himself. He was proud of how far he’d come. Wasn’t he? His thoughts slammed together, faster and faster, one running over the other.

Jesse hadn’t been wrong. Billy’s mom hadn’t wanted him. She hadn’t been looking.

He told himself he didn’t care.

But he’d always been a bad liar.

The door opened, spilling light out onto the snow. Billy blinked at Victor, still unable to catch his breath. He couldn’t unload all this on him. He couldn’t. He should get out of here, runaway before he outstayed his welcome, but he didn’t have anywhere else to go. His mom wasn’t going to take him in, for one thing. For another, he didn’t want to leave. He didn’t know how to stay. Now that Victor had seen him have a breakdown – the first one in nearly six months, Billy noted to himself – he wouldn’t want him around, and yet Billy wanted to be around him. He’d never had a dad around to make bad puns and pray hokey rhyming prayers with at dinner.

“Hey, buddy,” Victor said, brow furrowing as he saw the state he was in. “What’re you doing outside?”

Forcing words out took a couple of tries. “Nightmare – couldn’t breathe – I’m sorry – so sorry – I – I-”

“It’s okay,” he reassured him, holding out a hand for him to take _(Jesse’s hands on his wrist, so tight, leaving bruises-)_ and not seeming offended when Billy shook his head mutely. “It’s alright, okay? I get it. I’ve had panic attacks before. You’re not in trouble. You just need to come in where it’s warm so you don’t get cold. Can you do that for me?”

He could. He followed Victor back into the house, where the walls thankfully stayed in place as his dad brushed the snow off of his shoulders, wrapped him in a blanket and directed him to go sit down on the couch. Billy practically felt the inevitable round of questions that would come his way building up, brewing in Victor’s head, and wondered what he’d ask first. He’d probably want to know how often this happened – and it didn’t happen much anymore at all, not lately. Six months since the last big night like this wasn’t nothing, that was basically half a year. He wasn’t some sniveling wreck. He was a badass superhero, damnit. Billy repeated that to himself as Victor made them tea and sat down on the opposite end of the couch, perched on the arm of it. Rosa would’ve told him to get off, but Billy simply took the mug of tea and braced for impact.

“Do you want to talk about it?” his foster dad asked. Billy blinked at him in obvious confusion.

“You’re not mad?”

Now it was Victor’s turn to look confused, then a little sad. “No, of course not, Billy. I still have nightmares, and I’m more than twice your age. It’d be stupid to get mad at you for something I do. I haven’t had a panic attack in a while, but it took me a long, long time to learn how to work through those. Like I said when we first met: I get it.”

He wanted to tell him. He absolutely could not. Victor would tell Rosa who would mention it to Mary who would relay it to Freddy, and he couldn’t lose Freddy. His breathing started to pick up again, but he choked down tea until he could force it back to semi-normal. The silence stretched on, long and uneasy, eternities of nothing, until something inside him _broke_.

“I had this friend,” he started, words coming out in a rush, “I sort of – I was in a lot of foster homes, and so was he. We ran into each other a lot. He tried to help me look for my mom, sometimes. Sometimes we just hung out… we got into a lot of trouble, together. I mean, we were unsupervised kids,” Billy added, immediately trying to defend himself so Victor wouldn’t think he was a bad person _now_ , when he’d stopped doing the kind of absurd adrenaline-rush activities that he used to let himself be talked into. “So, uh, some stupidity is kind of normal, I guess? Mostly it was fun.”

“Mostly,” Victor repeated thoughtfully, voice calm and thoughtful in a way that put Billy at ease. Looking at him, it was easy to see he truly, really wasn’t in trouble, and that helped. “But I’m guessing something didn’t go right.”

“Kinda.” He shifted, folding his legs underneath him on the couch, turning things over in his head, trying to pick a starting point. “I don’t get a lot of nightmares. Not about this; usually I have nightmares about my mom, but those aren’t a thing anymore since…”

Victor placed a hand on his shoulder wordlessly. It was enough to make Billy want to cry, if he weren’t fourteen and way too old for that. He came close, anyway. His biological dad was in prison, far away from where he could have these moments with him, and he hadn’t realized until this exact moment how much he wanted this. He’d always envied people with normal families. Maybe that was why he liked doing stupid things when he was younger, to have something to impress the normal kids with and make them jealous the way he was jealous of them.

He paused before he kept going and his foster dad let him have however much time he needed to do it. The gesture loosed some kind of internal barrier between Billy’s standoffish attitude and his need to be honest.

“Have you ever heard of the choking game?” Billy asked, glancing over at him to gauge his reaction.

So far in his stay with the Vasquez family, pretty much nothing he’d ever said had given Victor pause. To his credit, if he was judging Billy internally, he didn’t show it, though he hesitated to ask, “In passing, from a kid we had back before Mary. What is it?”

“Uh… it’s different from place to place but basically, you get together with your friends and one of them chokes you until you pass out for like, a second, and then your friends catch you as you fall and sort of hold you up. You get all dizzy and happy and – it’s a whole thing. Uh.” Probably best not to detail that aspect of it. He didn’t want his dad to think he was crazy. “Somebody is The Holder, somebody is The Choker, somebody is It. Basically, you win by being willing to keep being choked when everybody else taps out.” He played with the hem of his pajama pants, not daring to look up. “I won, a lot. I’d make bets like, ‘if I win, you have to give me your lunch money’ and stuff to get money to go looking for my mom. Plus it made the other kids think I was badass, so they’d leave me alone.”

 _God, give me strength_ , Victor thought, doing his best not to look shaken. Back when he’d briefly been the foster dad for a seventeen year old who’d been chaotically bounced around the system, she’d had a song about the Choking Game on her iPod, but hadn’t been willing to talk about it – not with Darla in the house. _(“I can’t scare her,” Dottie had whispered, gesturing with her head at the newly-fostered Darla. “Just pretend I never said anything and I’ll take it off my playlists.”)_ Now, retroactively, the reticence made total sense. Of course it was giving Billy nightmares. Victor was a grown man and the idea was probably going to keep him up at night. There were so many things that could have gone wrong that he took a second to thank God Billy was alive at all. He wished he could go back in time and get ahold of Billy sooner, before he ever got so desperate for cash. How much money did it take to traverse a city looking for someone? Buses, subway fare, none of it was free, and Victor had taken for granted until this moment that Billy had inexplicably managed it.

He took a calming breath. _He was willing to get choked for her and she just-_

“This friend of yours you mentioned, did he introduce you to it?” he inquired as gently as possible. Billy nodded, still not meeting his eyes. “And was making money off of it his idea?” He shook his head no. “Do you feel bad about it?”

“…I dunno. I didn’t used to,” Billy whispered, sounding like a little boy and not a teenager, eyes sad and dark. “I wanted to find my mom so, so bad, so it – it was okay _then_ , because I was going to find her, so anything I had to do was okay.”

_(“Lay off of him,” Jesse warned, putting himself inbetween Wyatt and Billy, eyes sharp and glinting like knives._

_“He stole fifty dollars from me! Fifty fucking dollars, Dobrescu! Give me one reason I shouldn’t beat your boyfriend to a pulp!” Wyatt was fuming, red hair the only color in a bleak December world, his fists red and clenched at his side, still shaking from the force with which he’d punched Billy. “Sure, I may’ve called him a few names with the guys, but-”_

_Jesse Dobrescu strode forward in confident strides, a diamond-dust haired shadow, silently fuming, and, not waiting for him to finish, pushed Wyatt Tomlinson directly into oncoming traffic._

_His grip on Billy’s wrist was hard enough to force him along behind him as he ran.)_

“None of it was okay,” he choked out in the present. “I did stupid things and I let my friend get away with worse just so we could try to track down our parents, and then his turned up dead and my mom – my mom didn’t want…”

Victor rubbed his back, soothingly. “Hey. _Hey_. Billy, stay with me. Just take it one breath at a time, alright? I want to help, but now’s not the time, and now isn’t then. You’ve got to deal with this in steps. I did some really dumb things when I was your age, and it takes a while to get through it. Don’t think about what you wish you could’ve done – you’re a better person now, you won’t do it again, and not all of it was your fault, okay? I won’t lie and say you couldn’t have made better decisions, but you were a kid, you were alone and you need,” he emphasized this point by squeezing Billy’s shoulder, lovingly, “to give yourself a break.”

Too tired to argue, Billy nodded and leaned against Victor’s shoulder, exhausted, and dropped off back to sleep within minutes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Choking Game was a thing when I lived in the Northeast, but IDK if it's played in Philly. I figured there's enough of a chance it is based on how many Northeast states have a history with it, including at least two fatalities I could find in Pennsylvania, to include it without breaking willing suspension of disbelief.
> 
> I'm sure my internet provider is very concerned by my recent search history.


	4. Don't Look/Of Course I Looked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darla is adorable. Freddy is a nerd. And the past's echoes stay in the present.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's slightly more fluff in this chapter. Slightly. I'm worried I'm going too dark at points - and it may get worse before it gets better - so I wanted to put in more reassuring moments from the Shazamily.

_He blinked the world into focus. The summer sky was too bright, blinding, but there was someone standing over him, giving him shade.  
_

_“Billy? Bill, wake up. You’ve already scared the shit out of everybody else, you don’t get to pull this on me, too.” Jesse was kneeling beside him in the grass, knees grass stained and unexpressive face genuinely worried. “If you don’t get up, I’m gonna drag you out of here.”_

_Billy tried to swallow. His throat was too dry, too small, somehow. Breathing hurt. Yet there was still that dizzying, lingering sense of floating, that high of soaring above the world that kicked in before he passed out, and he didn’t try to fight it as Jesse stood up, hooked his arms under Billy’s shoulders and tugged. He dragged him into the relative shade of a tree, where the air was cooler, as the too-blue sky started gnawing away at the younger boy’s head. He was going to have a terrible headache before long; he found he couldn’t care about that, either._

_Jesse sighed, more annoyed than afraid now, it seemed, as Billy managed to keep his eyes open. “Where’s Elio? Doesn’t he normally appoint himself Watcher for this kind of thing?”_

_“He left.” The words hurt, but not as much as the facts did. He blinked, dazed, as Jesse handed him a water bottle out of his backpack. Billy didn’t know where he’d stolen it from this time. He didn’t ask, just chugged the entire thing, resting on his elbows, watching the sky while Jesse watched him. “I mean, it’s kinda more like he got thrown out, but he’s not here.”_

_“Well, shit,” the blond muttered, begrudgingly disappointed despite his longstanding history of bickering with Elio. They were opposites, but he knew he could trust the other boy to look out for Billy, and now that wasn’t a thing. “He was the last good guy here. What’re you going to do for cash now? I dunno what else to hit up that I’m not already trying.”_

_Billy grabbed his friend’s shoulder in order to pull himself up into a sitting position, leaning the bulk of his body’s weight against him. His vision spun dangerously. “That’s what I was doing.”_

_“…what?”_

_“Uh, funny story, about my end of the deal and how I got the cash…”_

_The ensuing explanation left Jesse, well known for his complete disregard for the safety of himself and others, staring at Billy like he was an idiot. In a way, it was almost cool, to be more badass and more of a risk taker than even Jesse. He tried not to let his satisfaction show. Seeing someone who never gave a shit about anything worry about him made him feel warm inside the same way that kissing Elio had. His eyes lingered on the other boy’s lips. The summer heat made him forget not to be obvious, and, well, their foster parents were definitely going to shove all of them apart after this. They’d already shipped Elio off to his sister, signed over the custody papers in a hurry all of a sudden, while they grew increasingly aware that everyone’s behavior deteriorated around Jesse and Billy couldn’t be trusted not to keep vanishing on them._

_He reached up and pulled Jesse down into a sloppy kiss._

_Later, he’d freak out when he realized he kissed Freddy the first time in that same impulsive, zero-thought sort of way. He’d wonder if he was trying to replace one guy with another. But Freddy, dorky, rambling, open-and-honest Freddy, had blushed and stammered and hadn’t known what to do with himself._

_Jesse kissed him back, hard, biting, and then they were both lying down in the grass, wrapped up in each other. At some point one of his hands, blessedly icy on the scorching July day, had shifted to press against the still-sensitive, bruising skin of Billy’s neck. His gaze lingered there, less in horror and more in… something else, something darker, harder to define._

_“You’re so fucking gorgeous,” he told Billy, and Billy, who had never liked how he looked, grinned up at him, already lovestruck._

 

* * *

 

 

When Billy woke up the second time, from a strange dream involving windowless buildings and being chased, there was some kind of yarn… thing… on his chest.

Darla clapped her hands, delighted that he was awake. “Hi Billy! Freddy said you had a hard time sleeping, so I made you a Bed Buddy! It’s like a Tribble from Freddy’s space show, only it won’t have a bunch of babies. And it has eyes, because I didn’t want it not to be able to see.”

“Uh, thanks.” He picked it up, inspecting the fluffy ball composed of yarn, string, thread, and two big beads, which he guessed were the eyes. “Does he have a name?”

“Billiam! It’s like your first name and your nickname put together!”

In the face of that much enthusiasm, he couldn’t keep from smiling. “Thanks, Darla. How do you make these, anyway?”

Apparently, that was the right question to ask, because she explained her process of making the fluffy, cuddly ball to him over breakfast. She’d made them for Freddy in case his reading up on weird trivia led to bad dreams, for Pedro after his ill-advised horror-punk musical phase, and for Eugene after his even more ill-advised pirating of the early access demo of _Visage_. (Eugene had not been allowed to play any game he didn’t run by his parents after that.) Mary didn’t have nightmares, but she had one since Darla didn’t want to leave her out. The logic, as Billy understood it, was that Darla thought nightmares came from being alone. By having a tiny, fluffy friend nearby, nightmares would either not happen, or be easier to get over. Darla herself, she confided in a stage whisper, had nightmares after she watched Coraline with Mary once, at which point the idea to make the Bed Buddies had come to her, like a miraculous lightning bolt of awesome.

Billy tried not to act like he noticed Freddy giving him worried looks. His whole relationship with Freddy felt weird to him the more he thought about it. He was into him. Was he too into him? He’d kissed him the night after the Superman thing, impulsively, completely without shame. Freddy was mid-speech about superhero duos at the time, which meant they were both going to associate that with making out, now, which was probably weird. He couldn’t really say _why_ he’d picked that moment, only that it had hit him abruptly that all the effort of tracking down Superman was worth it to see Freddy smile. Freddy smiling made him feel like everything was going to be alright, made his day brighter, and it hadn’t occurred to him that maybe there was a better time and place to make a move.

Most guys their age were not like that. He knew that. He knew that this wasn’t normal, that his inappropriately timed boners weren’t normal (or were semi-normal, according to the internet? Billy was more confused the more he tried to figure it out) and his level of experience was well and truly not normal. Jesse had made it seem like an accomplishment, sort of like swearing where they could get away with it or skipping school or breaking and entering. That was also kind of messed up, the more he thought about it. It was the romance equivalent of the choking game. If Freddy hadn’t wanted to date him, he’d have probably felt like garbage forever.

But Freddy _did_ want to date him, not just as Shazam but as Billy Hassan Batson, certifiable teenage mess with over twenty foster homes in his past, a long record of poor decision making and at least one fuck up that had nearly gotten people killed. That was the weirdest part.

He was afraid it wouldn’t last if Freddy had any idea just how screwed up he was.

Fortunately, it was Pedro’s turn to pick the music on the drive to school, which meant nobody could really talk over the mix of music that he insisted needed to be played at top volume to get the proper effect. Pedro’s musical tastes continued to baffle Billy; Echo by Jubyphonic, Roygbiv by Boards of Canada, and X by Poppy were today’s selections, and not only did they not go together, that last song switched between mellow peace-and-love to hard metal and back again at least twice. The complete whiplash actually felt pretty appropriate, given Billy was bouncing from better than he’d ever been to completely unsure of him just about as rapidly these days. That said, the lack of quiet in the car didn’t stop Freddy from handing Billy a book, which was rare given he usually shared his comics with the rest of the family more often.

There was a page bookmarked with an index card that helpfully told Billy which lines to read from and read to. _This is the nerdiest thing he’s done so far,_ Billy thought, initially deciding against reading whatever this was. _I can’t do this right now._

By the time English class hit, he felt like a jerk for not reading whatever nerdy thing Freddy had decided would make him feel better. He was clearly trying his best, and whatever it was, it couldn't hurt. Billy didn't want to explain to him at lunch why he hadn't read it, either. Just the mental image of Freddy's puppy dog eyes alone made the decision for him. With a resigned sigh, he opened up the book under his desk, grateful he sat in the back. Freddy’s book collection was smaller and more closely guarded than his comic books. Comic books could be hidden away easier at school, took up less room, and were more easily replaced if some bully stole them. While Freddy hadn’t had any trouble with that since Billy became Shazam, force of habit kept him from bringing something heftier to school still. Some part of Billy was touched that Freddy was willing to risk it for him. Mary had confided to Billy that Freddy had had over a dozen books swiped from him by jerks at school prior to this.

He found the line Freddy’s note told him to start at, and started reading.

_To get a better idea try this: focus on these words, and whatever you do don’t let your eye wander past the perimeter of this page. Now imagine just beyond your peripheral vision, maybe behind you, maybe to the side of you, maybe even in front of you, but right where you can’t see it, something is quietly closing in on you, so quiet in fact you can only hear it as silence. Find those pockets without sound. That’s where it is. Right at this moment. But don’t look. Keep your eyes here. Now take a deep breath. Go ahead take an even deeper one. Only this time as you start to exhale try to imagine how fast it will happen, how hard it’s gonna hit you, how many times it will stab your jugular with its teeth or are they nails?, don’t worry, that particular detail doesn’t matter, because before you have time to even process that you should be moving, you should be running, you should at the very least be flinging up your arms – you sure as hell should be getting rid of this book – you won’t have time to even scream._

_Don’t look._

_I didn’t-_

_Of course I looked._

Freddy’s note read: _Is this what happened to you last night, basically? I mean he’s describing a panic attack and I heard you roll off the bed so. Yeah. Just know I get it, kind of? And so do other people._

Billy swallowed, not sure why he abruptly wanted to go find his boyfriend and hold onto him tight. He barely registered the rest of the class, reading and rereading the book passage. This was what it felt like to try not to think of something, to try to outrun his own panic, to try not to freak out. It didn’t make sense as a metaphor because nothing about panic or anxiety made sense, nothing at all, so it made absolutely perfect sense, and somebody else knew what it was like. Somebody else felt this crappy before. He wasn’t a freak. Freddy got it, more or less, he got it and he was trying to let Billy know that he did in a way comic books couldn’t convey.

He reached into his bag and touched Billiam the Bed Buddy, and knew he wasn’t alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The book Freddy gave BIlly to borrow is House Of Leaves. That passage describes the onset of a panic attack as a result of trying not to think about a traumatic concept so hard it heightens the narrator's own anxiety. I imagine Freddy heard that the book deals with three realities overlapping/interacting/screwing each other up and, as a superhero fan, immediately grabbed it despite it being a college-level book.


	5. Fair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Freddy missteps. Jesse manipulates. Billy assigns blame, incorrectly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heed the tags. Heed the tags, heed the warnings, remember the premise we're working worth here, please do not proceed if referenced underage sex is a trigger for you. Please practice safe reading habits and do not consume content that will do harm to your mental or emotional wellbeing.
> 
> For the purposes of my fanfics, Marvel comics are fiction in the DC universes and vice versa. In-universe comics about Batman and Superman, etc. exist, but are very different from the DC comics we know. But if I reference Marvel: it's as you know it.

Freddy liked cuddling. Billy couldn’t say no to him, though he was pretty sure this was going to get them caught by Rosa and Victor. 

No matter how many times Freddy insisted their parents wouldn’t boot Billy out of the house for dating him, the mental fallout of the entire Elio incident, combined with knowing he well and truly had nowhere else to go was enough to make him lock the door most of the time when they curled up together. Whether that was justified or not, Freddy didn’t comment on it now that he knew how badly being bi in public had backfired on Billy. Although they weren’t talking about it, since it was sort of awkward to discuss your ex with your current boyfriend, Billy got the sense that Freddy felt sorry for everybody involved, which was a better reaction than he’d hoped for.

_(“You belong to me,” Jesse murmured, low and throaty, fingers tracing over the bruises on Billy’s neck, smiling tenderly as if he were saying ‘I love you’. “Trust me, I’m not leavin’ you, kid.”)_

Billy buried his face in Freddy’s shoulder and wrapped his arms around him a little tighter. “I should get back to superhero stuff. Now that New Year’s over, crime’s gonna go up again. Why do you think crime goes down during the holidays, anyway?”

Freddy hummed thoughtfully. “Too many witnesses, probably. Plus Philly’s way too cold in winter to do stuff if you don’t really have to or you’re really into crime.”

“Wish everybody felt that way,” he griped, thinking of the many, many local news stories that proved otherwise. “We should get earpieces like the Avengers so we can communicate with each other. You think we could use a Bluetooth or something for that?” That was what the comic book illustrations looked like, frankly.

“Probably?” The curly-haired boy bit his lip, contemplating that as he cautiously shifted his legs into a more comfortable position underneath Billy. “But I don’t know how we’d explain that to our parents, and they’re definitely going to notice either the bill or the things themselves, so… we’ll workshop that idea.”

Billy grinned. “We should get a pink one for Darla. Do they make them in glitter colors?”

They snickered to themselves, remembering Darla’s innocently wanting glitter from the strip club. Some part of Billy wondered if he was a pervert for being curious about that place to begin with. Probably not, since Freddy was as onboard for that whole venture as he was; they were equally inept with girls, so girls who were paid to pretend not to think they were dorks was a natural solution. Unfortunately, superhero publicity meant that wasn’t anything they could do again. The tabloids would have a field day with that kind of story, plus if any of the strippers put together their secret identities they’d both die of embarrassment. There were fewer uncooler ways to get unmasked as heroes than _that_ , and Mary would kill them before any supervillains had the chance.

Freddy’s heartbeat was solid and grounding underneath him when he shifted to rest his head on his boyfriend’s chest. He let his eyes close, thinking back to the book Freddy had loaned him temporarily just to make a point. It was a classically nerdy move, but of course Billy hadn’t been able to resist the temptation to finish the rest of that section of the book. Somehow, knowing he wasn’t the only one that had panic attacks so bad he couldn’t stay upright was really reassuring. Other people went through this and went on to write books and get famous, so he could make it through this and go be a superhero, right? Victor had said he had nightmares, too. This wasn’t some horrific personality flaw. It was just sucky. He could live with that.

“Can I ask you something?” Freddy asked, a little self-consciously. “And like, you can totally nope right out of answering if you want to, it’s cool.”

“Yeah, sure.” He knew it wasn’t going to be fun, but he was a hero. Heroes were supposed to honest and upstanding, especially with their boyfriend or girlfriend. Otherwise it just led to big fights and drama, neither of which Billy particularly wanted to be part of his life. Much as it made for good comics, he’d prefer for that to stay fiction for him.

He could practically _hear_ Freddy blushing. “How old were you when you first… you know… with a guy?”

“Wow, Freddy, not awkward _at all_ ,” he deadpanned, getting an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"Sorry, sorry, you can push me right off the bed and I'll phase through to the center of the Earth," his nerdy friend replied, picturing the end of that one X-Men storyline as an ideal way to duck out of this. "You don't have to answer if I'm being a tool, okay?"

He should lie. He needed to lie, then maintain that lie, not only due to how messed up it was but because Jesse was still out there. He was out there, he was possessive at best and in a non-superpowered fight, Billy wasn’t going to kid himself about who would win. He’d seen the blond fight on his behalf often enough to know he didn’t fight fair. And after Wyatt, there wasn’t really any doubt that he’d go for the jugular. Lying was a thing superheroes did to keep the people they loved safe, right? That was part of almost every romance plot for a reason.

Lying to Freddy felt wrong. Freddy had forgiven him for a lot of dickish behavior, he totally didn’t give a damn that Billy nearly got them all killed in that fight with Sivana, and he was surprisingly forgiving of Billy’s incredibly overactive hormones. (His body hadn’t been like this before he met Jesse. He wondered what he’d be like if they’d never-) There wasn’t much Freddy wasn’t willing to share with him when Billy asked. He couldn’t pretend lying to him when Freddy was an open book was okay. _Shit_. He stared at the underside of the bunk bed above him and braced for impact. Only Freddy could pull these truths out of him, not with threats or pressure, but with sheer force of sincerity.

“I was ten.”

“…what?” At least he sounded concerned, not disgusted. Billy shivered, curling up as the warmth seemed to leave his body, and Freddy was smart enough to realize something was wrong and tense up. “Uh, when you say ten, do you mean-”

“Yes, okay? Whatever you’re about to ask if I did, it’s a yes.” He withdrew his arms from around Freddy, in case he needed to bail out on him. Billy had the intense urge to either shower or go do something stupid, maybe run around outside again like last night or break something.

Freddy touched his face, trying to get him to look at him. “Hey, I’m not judging! I was just surprised, okay? Nobody’s exactly been dying to get into my pants, so – I guess I just feel bad, that I don’t really… I mean, I kissed like, one person before you and I totally sucked at it, so-”

“You’re perfect, Freddy, shut up,” Billy half-laughed, his eyes filling up with tears he couldn’t explain. He tried to blink them back, turning his head away so Freddy wouldn’t see him on the verge of a breakdown. One breakdown in six months was fine. Two in twenty four hours was bullshit. “I wish I was like you. I wish I wasn’t… I wish I never…”

_(Billy hit the mattress with an audible thud, and his breathing stalled as the reality of the situation sank in. “We’re gonna get caught, Jay.”_

_That didn’t explain the shaking in his knees, which somehow continued after he was lying down. His heartbeat was louder than a drum, thrumming in his ears, his pulse racing under Jesse’s thumbs. Jesse had him by the wrists, shifting to grip his hands belatedly, a second too late to be reassuring. His pale hair caught the warm evening light. He looked almost angelic, white-blonde locks a halo above Billy, lips parted as his breathing came fast. With his knees on either side of Billy’s hips, he effectively had him pinned, but his expression was less self-assured badass and more startled, hurt, maybe._

_“You said you loved me.” His voice was low, distressed. “You said you_ loved _me, Bill.”_

 _He’d never been so acutely, unpleasantly aware of his own hard-on. It was his first one ever when he was awake, and leave it to Jesse Dobrescu to notice. Billy wasn’t sure what he was even feeling anymore. He loved kissing Jesse when he felt like this. He didn’t mind Jesse grinding up against him at all, it was kind of fun, even, but now he was in too deep. A hundred things he’d heard from other kids, information and misinformation, ran through his head at a dizzying speed. He wanted to bolt out the door, out of the house where their foster parents were down in their basement home theater watching some inane movie he now wished he’d opted in for. He swallowed, once, twice. The air was too warm, the weight of Jesse’s body was too hot._ Out. I need to get out. _But he couldn’t make himself say it with Jesse, normally the least emotional person he knew, looking at him like Billy was crushing his heart._

_“I do, I do,” he assured the older boy, voice just above a whisper, barely able to speak through the growing sense of being trapped, “I just – I don’t wanna get in trouble, or get you in trouble, or something! They’ll separate us again.”_

_“They’ll be downstairs for the next hour. That’s enough time.” He gripped Billy’s hands tighter, shifting his weight forward, grinding against him and drinking in the way Billy had to bite back making a sound. “Come on, Batson. ‘m not gonna hurt you. You can trust me.”_

_“I’m not sure I’m up for this.”_

_Jesse glanced down where their bodies connected and raised an eyebrow. “Really.” There it was again, that flat disbelief, which could be so funny when they were joking around at school. Nothing about this was funny. “You’re a shit liar, Batson.” But his expression wasn’t angry, despite his legendary temper. He leaned down to press a kiss to his forehead, sending heat through Billy’s body with the briefest of touches. “Tell you what, you can pick what we do this time, okay? That sound fair?”_

_The world was getting smaller, walls closing in. There was nothing outside of this room, outside of this bed, trapped-trapped-trapped, and he had a thought,_ if I scream somebody will come stop this _, but Jesse’s eyes were wet with tears and franticly begging him to say yes, to say he loved him again. He’d said it to him and the older boy had practically come undone. In the three years they’d known each other, Billy had never seen him so completely open. Another thought hit him, along with a wave of guilt._ He loves me. I love him. This is what guys do when they’re in love.

_Jesse didn’t have anyone else. Neither did Billy. There wasn’t any other choice._

_“Okay, fair,” he conceded, and he couldn’t force his voice not to shake.)_

He managed to push Freddy off of him in time to rush over to the garbage can and puke. And the worst part was that, before he even got off the bed, he knew Freddy would take his side, but he didn't deserve it. Nobody ever understood that.

Jesse had never made him do anything he didn’t agree to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was going to be longer but if I move the aftermath to the next chapter, we get an entire chapter of fluff, love and hugs next time. I promise. It will be pure goodness, okay? Everybody bear with me, here.


	6. Answer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rosa listens, Victor questions, the family loves, Billy tries to be honest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is longer than I intended for it to be, but it was needed to get some scenes concluded and leave off on a semi-decent cliffhanger.
> 
> Despite the cliffhanger I swear Billy's making progress and it'll be okay.

Rosa had been walking over to the boys’ room to ask them what they wanted for dinner when she heard it: sobbing. Quiet, broken, fast-breathed sobbing that instantly made her throat close up. 

She wasn’t completely unaware of the fact Billy had obviously done some bad things in the past. He was a lonely boy who’d been trying to find the love he thought only his mother could give him, so she withheld her judgment when Victor told her what he’d learned last night. Much as she was worried, at least he was opening up, which was a huge step forward. It had taken her years as a foster kid before she felt comfortable enough to talk about things that she’d done wrong and pain that she’d gone through. This was a good sign. Yet somehow, some part of her knew that there had to be something more to it than a few childhood games taken too far.

She’d never hated being right so much in her life.

Freddy opened the door as she raised her hand to knock on it. That, too, was a good sign. When Freddy first moved in he’d been afraid to ask Rosa and Victor for help; he knew that a disabled foster kid could get passed on for being too much of a burden and it kept him from coming to them with pain sometimes, even now. To see his first instinct be to go get his parents was incredibly gratifying, and later, she’d tell him how proud she was, when she wasn’t trying to keep her own calm. Billy was kneeling by the trash can, breathing far too quickly, hands clamped over his mouth as he tried to force himself to stop crying. She could see him fighting to keep the sound down. The effort was obvious in the shaking of his shoulders and the pain in his face.

“Billy?” she started as she stepped forward, careful to keep her distance. “Do you need me to get you a bucket, sweetie?”

“’m fine,” he managed, but she simply sat down beside him, shaking her head.

“No, you’re not. But you will be, I promise.” Giving him space for now, she looked at the trash can and then at his face, brow furrowing in concern. “This isn’t some bug you picked up at school, is it?”

It was a rhetorical question, but it was meant to give him a sense of control over the situation, which was important under the circumstances. He shook his head, confirming her suspicions.

“Freddy, could you go get another trash bag, please? And the bucket; I think it’s in the closet.” She waited until he was out of the room to turn back to Billy, and, giving him plenty of time to pull away, placed a hand on his back. When he didn’t seem bothered, she started rubbing soothing circles there. “I’m not as good as Victor is at these things, but I’m not mad. I needed to cry too, sometimes, when I finally got to a good home. It helps; you need to cry to heal.” Rosa watched his shoulders slump, a growing sense of dread rising up in her. “Nobody’s going to make you talk about it. I just want you to know that you can, alright?”

“Is-” he had to take a deep breath to get to the point where he could talk, “Is Freddy freaked out? I didn’t – I’m not _like this_ , I swear – it’s not his fault-”

She pushed a stray strand of hair behind his ear. The touch seemed to be platonic enough to be comforting. “Shh, shh. Freddy and I will talk later. I don’t think he’s too freaked out, though. He’s seen a lot of kids here at their worst, and he still loves them. He’ll just read to you out of his book on pagan medicine, probably.”

He snorted, in spite of himself. That was exactly the kind of useless trivia he expected from comic-books-and-random-facts Freddy. “Yeah. I guess that sounds about right.” He swallowed, wincing at the pain. “Sorry about your trash can. This is the first time in, uh, maybe a year? That this has happened, I mean, I…” Billy faltered, visibly searching for something reassuring to say to her.

 _Bless this sweet boy_ , she thought, daring to lean over and press a kiss to the top of his head. “Darla used to get sick when she was too anxious. I can deal with a little puke. I’m much more worried about what brought this on, Billy. I don’t like seeing you like this – and that doesn’t mean I want to send you away,” she clarified, remembering Darla’s concerns about that same thing, “it means I want to know how to help you so this doesn’t happen again.”

“I dunno. This doesn’t happen a lot,” he explained helplessly, genuinely at a loss for answers. “Last time it was when I was getting bullied about something… bad, but Freddy’s the exact opposite of that. Please don’t ground him or whatever?”

“Nobody’s in trouble,” she shushed him, stroking his hair. “Not you, not him, nobody.” Rosa swallowed past the lump in her throat to ask, “What were you talking about when this happened?”

Billy went pale, shaking his head. Clamping a hand over his mouth, he gagged, but thankfully didn’t throw up again.

“I got the bucket,” Freddy announced, with Darla trailing behind him.

“I got a wet washcloth and my baby blanket,” Darla said sagely, getting a weak smile out of Billy. “It’s got positive energy in it! I read about how to put good vibes in it on the internet. So it’ll keep you from getting more sick.”

“Thanks,” he replied, voice still a little shaky. “You’re my favorite sister. Don’t tell Mary, though.”

Darla nodded solemnly, placing the aqua-colored blanket on the bed for him to use later and handing him the washcloth, concerned but clearly happy to be the favorite. When she gave him a quick hug, he couldn’t help being oddly comforted. As little as she understood about any of this, she was always going to be there for him, and so was Freddy, whose face was a portrait of guilt. Billy couldn’t meet his eyes. He could kick himself for putting Freddy through this; of all the people he didn’t want to have worry about him, Freddy was the one he seemed to have the least luck playing it cool with. He was also the one Billy felt the most guilty about hurting.

Perhaps that was why, when Rosa murmured, “Corazoncito, if you want to talk about it, we can do that later, when you’re feeling better, alright?” he found himself nodding.

“Yeah. Later – without half the house listening in.” He gestured with his head to the door, where Eugene ducked out of sight when Rosa looked.

Rosa clucked her tongue, sighing. “Eugene, we’ve talked about this.”

Billy grinned, tiredly. “Hey, at least I have people who give enough of a shit to listen in on me now.” 

“You always will,” Rosa chuckled, ruffling his hair.

 

* * *

 

 

Sleep came surprisingly quickly, between the Bed Buddy and the baby blanket, and he managed not to have any nightmares.

He woke up once to scroll through the news on his phone, checking to see if he should go do some superhero stuff. Crime, however, was slowed by the continually plummeting temperatures, resulting in very little need for Shazam to go out and fight. Relieved, he got up, went to the bathroom, got back into bed and fell asleep again. Exhaustion had overcome him as soon as he’d made the promise to talk to Rosa and Victor later. Billy felt as if he’d run a marathon. Devoid of energy, he waved off Freddy’s apologies in favor of ignoring reality. When he woke up more permanently, he’d have to deal with life. Right now, he didn’t have to, so he blocked it all out for long enough to pull himself together.

That was a trick he’d picked up from a girl in two of his foster homes. Much like Mary, she was older, one of those foster kids passed on due to not being young enough to be adoptable to most people. Billy had a hard time taking advice from other people seriously when he was younger – sometimes he still did – but Aliciana had been the self-appointed mom of both houses she’d been in when he knew her. She made meals, she made everyone carry small First Aid Kits in their backpacks, and she helped Billy learn how to quiet his mind enough to sleep. There were a lot of kids with sleep issues in their house, in their demographic, really, so she was something of an expert. Later, when dealing with the aftermath of what he and Jesse did, he would lay in bed and run through each of the methods she’d outlined until one worked.

These days he had more than one person who checked in on him. He woke up to find Pedro had left him a list of calming songs, or as he put it, “Songs To Make Your Mind Shut Up”, helpfully divided by genre. Freddy had actually _cleaned_ their room, which was a sure sign he was worried since he’d previously declared it Billy’s turn to do that. And when he changed his clothes and stumbled into the kitchen, Mary was there, making pancakes, talking to Victor. Her hair was in a fancy braided updo, which made him blink in confusion since she wasn’t usually into that sort of thing.

Still, she’d made two kinds of pancakes and was obviously concerned given she kept glancing over at him, so he said, “I like your hair. Thanks for making breakfast.”

“My girlfriend did it last night,” she explained, handing him a plate before he could protest that he wasn’t hungry. “We’re still figuring out what to do for prom. But it keeps it out of the way to cook and it stayed in place after I slept in it, so I’m thinking this is the winner.”

“Does our school…” he paused, realizing he had no tactful way to finish that question.

Fortunately, she knew where he was going with that. “You can take whoever you want to prom.” She handed him a napkin with a fork rolled inside, adding low enough that Victor didn’t hear, “Including Freddy.”

On any other day, her approval of their relationship would’ve made him freak out. Now, with Victor watching him, he did his best not to react. If he _did_ open up to him about whatever the hell happened yesterday, Victor wouldn’t want Billy dating his son. Not that Billy would blame him for that, all things considered, but it was easier not to deal with that until he absolutely had to. He left Victor and Mary discussing prom dresses, a topic he knew literally nothing about beyond ‘they exist’, to go sit down in the dining room with Rosa, who was nursing a cup of coffee and reading a book. Billy squinted at the title, _Bird By Bird_ by Anne Lamott, wondering what it was about. His hunger won out, though, after missing dinner and throwing up lunch. He ate while she read, the silence almost cozy somehow.

Finally Mary left, saying something about studying with some friends and grabbing food afterwards. Victor made himself a cup of coffee, sitting down across from Billy. For a Saturday, it was surprisingly peaceful, all things considered, until one listened closely: Darla’s faint singing along to the theme song of that one anime she liked watching online could be heard (magical girl superheroes, she’d explained to him, trying to get him into _Futari Wa Pretty Cure_ despite his lack of interest in anime as a whole), a counterpoint to Eugene and Freddy loudly joking with each other as they played some game, with the faint chuckles of Pedro as he watched The Rap Critic on YouTube barely audible. Billy mentally replaced the word peaceful with homey in his head. This was what a home was supposed to be, probably, more or less. He finished eating, going back and forth between his options in his head. He could put this off. Victor and Rosa respected their kids enough to give them space. If he did, though, Freddy would be even more worried than he already was, and he might have another epic meltdown or whatever that was last night.

He put his dishes in the sink before coming back and leaning against the table, too wound up to sit. His foot tapped anxiously against the floor. “Uh. I’m not really great at the whole talking thing, but I think it’d help if we went somewhere the rest of the house can’t overhear us? If that’s cool with you guys.”

“Of course,” Rosa smiled warmly, rising from her seat after bookmarking her spot in her book. Victor nodded, stretching sleepily before getting up. Neither of them seemed angry that he’d made everybody in their house panic last night.

_(“Nobody’s gonna help you except you, kid,” Jesse told him flatly, putting his hands in his pockets as they walked away from another false lead, another Batson who wasn’t Billy’s mom. “Should’ve learned that already by now, but here we are…”)_

Jesse was wrong, though. The Vasquez family had already helped him so much, his siblings had helped him find his mom, they’d saved his life as superheroes, Freddy had helped him figure out his superpowers and Rosa and Victor were determined to help him from the first time they’d met him. Over the years, not much of Jesse’s advice or philosophy had failed him, but he’d never met these people. If he had, he would have understood there were still good people there who cared about others and who wanted to help. He’d fundamentally misunderstood the nature of the world and passed that onto Billy like a disease, or maybe more like a recurring nightmare.

For the first time in years, as he followed Victor and Rosa into their room, he found himself wondering what else Jesse Dobrescu had gotten wrong.

Leaning against the door – he felt better if he had a clear way to bail out of here – he took one deep breath, then another, then tried to figure out where to look. He ended up staring at their dresser, which had pictures of all the kids here and some Billy didn’t recognize, presumably other foster kids from before he’d arrived. There was also a picture of their wedding, with both of them grinning and laughing, which seemed sugary sweet enough to absolutely be how he expected that whole thing had gone now that he thought about it. _I wonder if I’ll ever get hitched._ He could practically hear Jesse’s laughter in his mind. Billy looked at Rosa and Victor instead.

“I don’t know where to start,” he admitted, shrugging. “Usually I just kind of bullshit my way out of this sort of thing.”

“Language,” Rosa chided. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “But I understand what you mean. I don’t think anybody ever really knows where to start when it’s something upsetting.” She sat down on the edge of the bed, perched there like a mother hen. “You said you were talking to Freddy when it happened?”

Billy directed his gaze and his question to Victor, who Freddy was easily closest to. “He’s not mad at himself, is he? He didn’t do anything wrong, I swear.”

“He’s more worried about you than mad at himself, I think,” his foster father replied, sighing. “I think, anyway. I talked to him and he’s getting there, you know? Don’t worry, buddy, he’ll move on sooner rather than later. He’s a pretty resilient kid.”

“Cool.” He chewed his lower lip, thinking. “Uh, did he tell you what we were talking about?”

Rosa and Victor exchanged unreadable looks before she spoke. “Yes and no. He said you were talking about guys?”

Billy froze momentarily, breath stuttering. “So you know I’m bi.”

“So is our daughter,” Victor pointed out, as if that settled things. “We’re an open-minded and open-hearted house, or we try to be, anyway.”

Mary’s sexuality was something he wanted to inquire about, given that dating and being a superhero were already complicated before adding college into the mix. He wanted to know if she was happy, which was a weird first thought, and if anybody ever gave her crap for being bi. He wanted to know that she was okay, that she was having the kind of picturesque life with her girlfriend that he was failing pretty badly at achieving with his boyfriend. All of that, though, would just look like a distraction tactic to Rosa and Victor, and they’d be right to identify it as such. He was stalling for time as it was, trying to give himself a few more seconds to come up with a way to say this that would be smart or funny enough not to freak them out. He didn’t want to hurt them with this.

But he was hurting, too, so he pushed the words out, one heavy syllable at a time. “Guys at school have been talking about sex a lot lately. Because guys.” That wasn’t really a reason, but did there need to be one? They were all at that age. He watched their faces for any sign they thought he was a pervert. Finding none, he dropped his eyes to the floor to avoid losing his nerve. “So Freddy asked how old I was when I… you know… with a guy.”

Victor nodded. “That sounds like his exact wording, yeah. And that made you…?” he trailed off, seeing Billy shake his head ‘no’. He and Rosa exchanged extremely worried looks. Rosa had gone very still.

“Then was it the answer that hurt your heart?” she asked, and that wording, tender and compassionate, was more love in a sentence than his biological mother had ever shown him. He shook his head yes, biting his lower lip hard enough to draw blood. "And what was the answer?"

“Ten.”

She inhaled sharply. He’d never seen one word make two people lock up like that. He inhaled, then inhaled again, feeling the air leaving his lungs. Given how recently Sivana had tried to drown him, it would’ve made more sense to flash back to that, but Sivana didn’t hate Billy. He didn’t know him. Jesse had, he’d fought and nearly killed for Billy, he’d been his best friend and then he’d turned on him after all the secrets Billy kept for him and-

“I was ten and I was scared and I didn’t have anybody else and I needed to find my mom and _I’m sorry_ I know I should’ve said something I know I could’ve stopped it I know it’s my-” The words flooded out, rapid fire, he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t get them out fast enough, and he stared at them imploringly, begging them to understand. “Please don’t be mad at me.”

Rosa moved to embrace him, then hesitated, aware that might not be alright with someone who’d gone through what he had. But he wrapped his arms around her readily, and the next thing he knew Victor had his arms around both of them, holding them close. _Like a real family_ , he thought, choking back tears out of sheer astonishment. _They’re not mad, they’re not mad, holy shit they’re not-_

“Dios mio,” his foster mother whispered, pressing a protective kiss to the top of his head. “I am not angry _with_ you, I am angry _for_ you, Billy.”

“Hard same,” Victor said, and the attempt at sounding ‘cool’ and ‘modern’ was so sincere and genuine that Billy hugged him a little tighter, wordlessly grateful for the sentiment if nothing else. “You’re my son, and anybody hurts my son, they have to talk to me. You understand?”

Billy nodded, sniffling, hoping that crying wouldn’t become a regular part of his life, now. He didn’t even know why he was crying; he wasn’t sad. As tired as he felt, having gotten this off of his chest made him feel lighter, too, in a way he couldn’t quite define.

“Good. Now what’s this guy’s name?” his foster father asked, firmly but not unkindly.

( _He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe and Jesse’s grip on his throat was iron, the frost of the ground was seeping into his skin as the older boy straddled him, weighing him down. He was drowning on land in Jesse's eyes, cold and gray like a frozen ocean._

_“This is between us, Batson,” he whispered, breath hot on Billy’s face in the cold November air. “Tell one person, and I swear to God I’ll kill myself.” He released his grip on the younger boy’s throat, watching him gasp for air. After a few moments, his expression softened, and he pressed a kiss to Billy’s face, trailed them down to his neck. “I can’t lose you. They’ll take you away from me, Bill. You’re all I have. Don’t you get it? Without you, I don’t wanna be alive.”_

_Billy shut his eyes and tried desperately not to think, but the threat hung over him like a dark cloud, a leaden weight. He didn’t doubt Jesse’s conviction for a second.)  
_

“…I can’t say."


	7. Defeat/Free

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy, having hit rock bottom, decides to try for recovery regardless, and to try to leave the past behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM SO SORRY. There's more angst in the flashbacks than I intended. This is the last of it for the next three chapters or so, though! After this we're bailing on flashbacks for Billy entirely for a while. Consider this the last dying gasp of the darkness that's pre-movie events.
> 
> ((A flashback within a flashback happens twice and it's delineated from the rest of the work like this.)) Yes, it's a little weird, but we're not going to do that again, either, so bear with me.
> 
> Pronunciation note: Salem is pronounced like the city in the United States - say-lum; Saleem is pronounced sa-leem. Yes, that's visually confusing, but that's the charm of it.

“I can’t,” he repeated hopelessly, shutting his eyes so he wouldn’t have to look at their disappointed faces. “He’s not even in the foster care system anymore, so it’s not like there’s anything you can do…"

“He’s a kid?” Rosa asked, voice sharp with concern.

He wiped at his bleeding lip, which he hadn’t realized he’d bitten through. “Not anymore. He’s nineteen, and he only stuck around working for Social Services for a year before he left. Nobody’s sure where he went.”

_(He felt so little even though he was calling the police in on himself, it didn’t matter, nothing mattered. He wasn’t scared when they showed up, when he saw their guns, when he locked them in to dive into the car. What were they going to do, kill him? That wasn’t a whole lot worse than being alone. The risk was worth it. Names, he needed names and addresses, needed to find whatever last Batsons he hadn’t tracked down yet. He had to get to his mother, because Jesse was gone and there wasn’t anyone else left for him now except her. The walls were closing in even when he was outside. Billy hadn’t slept in two and a half days, couldn’t, wouldn’t go back to one more person who pretended to care about him. He wrote down the address, stole the cop’s lunch and marveled at his own inability to give a damn about the legal consequences. Theft, forgery, property damage – no charges mattered. It wasn’t real, not like Jesse’s arms around him as he pressed kisses against his temple, not like having someone he could break down in front of and know wouldn’t leave._

_He ran from good people because even bad people didn’t want him. Jesse didn’t want him anymore. That was the only reason he would’ve left and that, that was finally coming close to shattering him. Jesse wasn’t a good person, probably, but without him, Billy had no one. The knowledge made him want to scream but his internal fire was dying out. He had been running on fumes for too long to keep going, to have the energy left to cry when yet another Batson turned out not to be his mom._

_Billy had run out of options, out of people and out of resources. Twenty-three foster homes run away from, hundreds of dollars in travel expenses he’d had to earn on his own, thousands of days of dreaming about his mom or about Jesse getting his mood swings under control or both, and not only did he not have a happy ending to show for it, he didn’t have anyone to cry about it to._

_By the time his case worker handed him over to the Vasquezs, he was defeated enough he couldn’t bring himself to say a word during the car trip home.)_

The math of their ages was self-evident. He’d never felt fourteen was young, probably since kids in the foster care system knew that the older they got, the less likely it was they would be adopted. Fourteen didn’t feel like a kid’s age, to him, until Freddy had managed to insert himself into Billy’s life and fill it up with chatter and geekery. Ten didn’t feel young, either, not in retrospect, not when he’d already been hopeless and overwhelmed by that point. But as much as he didn’t feel his age, as much as he didn’t want to be treated like a dumb kid, he wasn’t stupid.

Fourteen was awfully young to be thrown away by someone he loved. And maybe it was a monstrous love, a violent one, sometimes a one-sided one, but he _had_ loved Jesse.

Having given his foster parents every reason to hate his old sort-of-boyfriend sort-of-recurring nightmare, Billy couldn’t speak once it hit him that he’d given away their respective ages. _It’s not like Jesse was an adult. Shit. Why did I say that? I should’ve lied and said he was older._ What kind of kid couldn’t fight off another kid? It was particularly pathetic given Billy’s standoffish nature and I-can-handle-myself attitude. He hadn’t meant to tell them so much, but their kind eyes and concerned voices had drawn the truth out of him; he couldn’t lie to them without feeling horrible, so he gave them the uncomfortable reality. Cautiously, he dared a quick glance at his foster parents. Rosa’s entire demeanor was a potent mixture of horror and fury, while Victor took a deep breath as he tried to process the implications. Victor didn’t tell Billy that, under Pennsylvania state law, fifteen was old enough to be tried as an adult – if they could prove anything, they absolutely could throw anyone who hurt Billy in prison. Theoretically. In practice, the statute of limitations was running out, proving anything would either require a very invasive medical exam or some form of visual evidence like a video, and it would be Billy’s word against an adult’s, who by now could have gotten character witnesses ready in case this happened. Whatever the statistics were on abused foster children, and Victor wasn’t sure any of those were accurate, he knew how rare it was for a case like this to yield consequences.

They still needed to get their son more comfortable talking about this, though, if they were ever going to help him realize it wasn’t his fault. In order to figure out what to say they had to know what he was thinking. Given that, Victor shot his wife a meaningful look, silently asking her to drop it for now. The name wasn’t as important as the admission in and of itself. _He_ wanted the name, wanted to make sure this guy wasn’t anywhere near children, but as much as he would love to call this guy up and put the fear of God in him, it wasn’t a priority right now.

“Billy,” Victor said, “Are you okay talking about this in front of me?” When Billy stared at him, confused, he elaborated, “A lot of times, people who have been through what you have don’t want to talk about it with men. It might set off another panic attack, and I don’t want you to go through another one of those, buddy. I’d never put you through that if I could help it.”

“I’m probably okay? I dunno.” He could see why other people might have issues talking to guys about it, but only if they found the guy they were talking to threatening. Victor was a teddy bear of a man who Billy knew, implicitly, would never hurt anyone. “I kinda talked a little bit about it with another kid, once, since he figured out what was going on and got worried. He’s the one who got me a different case worker, to try to get us separated.”

Victor shut his eyes for a moment and thanked God for the intervention of at least one halfway decent person. In an ideal world, kids wouldn’t have to protect each other from one another. This was not an ideal world, so he’d take what little good news he could get.

“Does that mean your case worker knows?” Rosa murmured, still not letting Billy go even when Victor took a step back to give him space, wary of overloading him. “She’s always been totally honest with us. I can’t imagine her knowing and not mentioning-”

“No, she’s got no idea,” Billy said, quick to jump to the defense of the case worker who’d brought them together. “I’m not really sure what Salem – uh, that’s the guy who got her assigned to me – I don’t know what he said to get me transferred or what went on. But does it matter? I mean, I think, here, nobody’ll be able to find me. So I can just get over it, right? I’ll figure it out now. I’m okay.”

_(“That guy’s like sunlight – too much of him is toxic,” Salem murmured conspiratorially, too quiet for anyone else to hear. “You need to get out before he burns you up.”_

_"Jealous much, man?" Billy didn’t feel like arguing the point that half his leads on his mother and more than two thirds of the funding these days came from Jesse. Seeing his joking deflection wasn't working, he groaned. “Look, what’re you going to do about it? He can find anybody in Philly, dude. That was why I started hanging out with him in the first place. He knows people. Even when I get booted to another county, he shows up.”_

_Salem tilted his head as he watched Jesse make his way through the school parking lot to pick Billy up, like a cat surveying its’ prey. Or perhaps that wasn’t the right metaphor. Jesse could hold a grudge and work a mood, and in a fair fight he could take most other kids. That was why most people learned to cover for him, let him do what he wanted, and keep their nose out of his business. Salem, however, was not most people. Day one, he’d clocked the blond as a troublemaker and by day eight, he was practically at war with him. Everybody knew that Saleem “Salem” Al-Tabari would turn corrupt social workers and criminal kids over to the cops in a heartbeat. His being transferred into the same county as Jesse was an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. They hated each other within an hour of meeting. Billy had seen a video, once, of a mouse biting into a snake's throat and making it bleed to death. That was the dynamic between the two older boys, roughly. He just wasn't sure which of them was the mouse or the snake on any given day.  
_

_Billy hadn’t meant to end up caught between them, he was thirteen, nearly fourteen now, and stupidly attracted to the Arab boy and really bad at hiding it. Some part of him respected Salem’s convictions, his desire to live his life by his own rules and not the rules of whoever was acting self-important in any given foster home. As a lifelong troublemaker, Billy could respect people who followed their own paths. Most importantly, though, and most attractively, Salem had the patience of a saint. He was the first Arab person Billy knew outside the context of the news and mean-spirited jokes, and a rarity in the foster care system. There wasn’t a day where he hadn’t gotten snubbed, talked down to, or talked over before noon. Even their foster parents got snappy at him for minor things, but no one could get a rise out of him despite their best efforts. In a sea of foster homes, foster kids, drama and fights, Salem was an island, serene, soft-spoken and snarky. When everything else was a disaster, Billy could go hide in Salem's room and chill, hang out, talk. He'd never truly had that, before, and he couldn't stay away from him.  
_

_((On some deeper level, Billy looked at Salem and recalled distant, fuzzy memories of his father. He remembered being lifted up by strong, dark hands, bounced up in the sunlight of an apartment painted pale yellow. The radio on the windowsill by the sink spilled music out into the room that his father sang to with a rich voice that would linger for years after he’d departed from Billy’s life. All that Billy remembered of his face were his eyes, honey-brown and warm, and when he saw the same color in Salem’s he felt_ safe _.))_

_One drawback of having a badass for a friend, Billy was finding, was that it was impossible to predict his next move or stop it. “Sometimes, it’s not who you know, B.B. It’s what you’re willing to do.” He said it like he was making a decision, quite possibly a drastic one.  
_

_“Uh, what?” He had a fleeting, hopeful second of wanting Jesse in jail and immediately felt awful for it. Jesse had helped him look for his mom time and again. He’d been part of Billy’s life for years. What kind of friend, let alone boyfriend, did it make Billy if he secretly hoped Salem could get him away from him? "Salem, what're you planning?"  
_

_“Nothing.” Salem grinned, a flash of white teeth and charming dimples. That Salem was five times the charmer Jesse was undermined his ability to manipulate the parents at their current foster home, and that bothered the blonde a lot. It bothered him a lot more, Billy knew, that Billy couldn’t help getting flustered every time Salem turned that charm on him, that he was drifting out of Jesse's orbit more and more with every day now that Salem was keeping an eye out for him. “Don’t worry about it, Baby Bat. You can thank me when you’re out.”_

_“First of all, don't call me that in public. And secondly, dude, don’t talk like I'm in prison.” The implication was disquieting, especially since he couldn't refute it. Salem knew that, judging by the way he turned serious.  
_

_“Well, you’re not free. Yet.”)_

His foster parents looked at each other in that way only long-married couples could do, having a conversation without words. The look in their eyes was like Salem’s, not quite a full year ago, plotting ways to get Billy as far away from Jesse as possible, even if it meant contacting a case worker from outside of their county. It hit Billy then that for all the running around with Freddy he’d done as Shazam, for all the property damage and havoc he’d brought into their lives, they weren’t going to bail on him. Some part of him still expected some moment of clarity where they’d realize how much work it would take to deal with him. His mother had seen it earlier on, that dealing with him was going to be exhausting, and she’d walked away when she had the chance. Somehow, though, the thought of losing the Vasquez family was worse to him, more vivid. _Probably because I never really knew her,_ he reflected, _but I know them._

Rosa smoothed Billy’s hair, having mussed it when she hugged him, eyes almost unbearably kind. “We want you to get through this, too. But you don’t have to do it alone, or go outside to calm down in the middle of the night, or try to hide it when something makes you feel sick. We’re your family, Billy. You don’t have to figure this all out by yourself.”

“You sound like Salem. He wanted me to go to therapy – but I couldn’t do that and look for my mom,” he noted, wondering what it would’ve been like if he’d given up on her sooner, if he’d taken Salem’s offer to get him transferred out of state entirely. He would’ve been free of Jesse a lot earlier.

He also wouldn’t have met Freddy, so it wasn’t worth it.

Victor gazed at him, a hint of hope in his expression. “Would you be willing to try that now? We’re not experts, buddy. We can’t give you help as good as somebody professional could.”

“We’re not saying you’re crazy,” his mom added hastily. “I needed therapy once I got into a good foster home, to unlearn the cruel things people had told me. Everyone needs help sometimes, and nobody here would make fun of you for it.”

“ _You_ went to therapy?” Billy asked, completely thrown by that. Nobody seemed to have their life together more, in his eyes than Rosa. “Really?”

She nodded. “I did. And it helped – but we won’t force you into anything, Billy. If you don’t want to go, we won’t make you. You just need to know it’s an option and that we’ll help make it happen if you want it.”

_(He threw the notebook into the trash, barely resisting the urge to do something worse. Dark thoughts floated through his head, disconcerting in how little they scared him, telling him to go check and see if he could raid the Vasquez family medicine cabinet, just die already and get it over with. Without leads, without any clue on how to keep going, without Jesse, what point was there in taking one more breath?_

_((“Give every stupid decision three hours of thought,” Salem had advised him once, with a self-deprecating smile. “God knows I wish I had.”))_

_He forced himself to get through the night, but the thoughts lingered anyway in the back of his head, dreams of choking waking him throughout the night.)_

“…yeah. Yeah, I’ll go. I think I need it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last of Billy's three exes gets introduced! Thankfully he and Billy had a functional, mostly healthy, highly non-physical relationship so I can actually reassure you all it's not going to produce more angst. (Granted, Billy's got mixed feelings about how things went, but it's overall a net positive for him anyway.)
> 
> I rewrote whole sections of this repeatedly and I'm not satisfied with the lack of narrative flow, but I have a long shift at work today and I didn't want to go too long between updates. Thus, here we are. Thank you to my readers for forgiving the weaker chapters in this work.


	8. Thanks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The present is gentle. The past stays in the past. In the chaos, a moment of peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure if this advances the story a lot but we needed more fluff in this. Also, I didn't want to leave you guys without an update, so I wrote this after work and now I'm going to go crash. Hope you like it.

Billy’s therapy appointment was scheduled for Wednesday, which left him with the better part of a weekend and two school days to freak out about having impulsively agreed to talk to a stranger about his problems. 

As with a lot of his life these days, his time he might’ve spent overthinking it was cut into, pleasantly, by Freddy. Though Billy didn’t blame him for the whole panic attack and puke thing, Freddy had already made up his mind that he was responsible for his boyfriend having a breakdown, and was trying to make up for it in a uniquely Freddy sort of way. Lunch on Saturday was followed by a three movie marathon with Freddy, which was a concession to Billy’s repeated attempts to get him into Darkman, a superhero he well and truly had no interest in. The fact that he went from groaning about it last week to sitting through eight hours of the film trilogy with Billy was the single most obvious attempt to make something up to him in the history of anything.

Any other time, he might’ve tried pointing out to Freddy that it wasn’t his fault. If he did this time, that might mean having to explain himself, and Billy didn’t want to tell his boyfriend about Jesse. He in no way trusted Freddy not to go superhero on the spot to try to hunt Jesse down, for one thing, and for another, he didn’t trust himself not to get emotional talking about it. He hated getting emotional. Billy still remembered the way foster siblings got burnt out by crying, by nightmares, by having to put up with another kid’s issues. He’d seen how quickly friendships could dissolve. Freddy was different, he knew, and he knew that pretty early on, yet he couldn’t get himself to be okay with talking about any of it. It was easier to waste a day watching movies together.

Thankfully any chance to cuddle and run the risk of getting another incredibly unwanted, involuntary hard on was spoiled by Darla. She plopped herself down next to them for the first movie, got incredibly sad that Darkman’s love life was pretty well screwed over by the villain, and then they ended up pausing the movie at one point to reassure her that even if she got injured and disfigured like he was, they would absolutely still be her brothers and love her. Really, she had a remarkable ability to spot plot holes Billy hadn’t considered. Most guys would probably dislike their little sister inviting herself to what was technically a date activity, but Billy welcomed the distraction from his own building nerves.

He’d agreed to therapy. _Why_ had he agreed to that? Oh God it was going to suck. He was bad at talking to people, period, with the one exception of Freddy, and he had no idea how to even explain what he was there for. Every time he tried to picture himself summing up his problems to a therapist he was left picturing himself standing there silently like a complete loser. Worse, though, was the little voice in the back of his head whispering that he wouldn’t be believed. He’d spent so much of his life building up a reputation as the kid who could handle himself, who didn’t need anyone, who could be choked or hit or injured and shrug it all off, that he’d always assumed people would think he was lying for attention if he tried to talk about what had happened. Half of why he’d been able to talk about fragments of it with Salem was that Salem hadn’t bought that Billy was tough for a second. The other half was that he’d confronted Billy with his suspicions. Therapists only knew what was on your file, and Billy’s file showed off a lifetime of doing his own thing, not listening to anyone else and making his own way in life.

A little voice in the back of his head that sounded like Jesse told him to give up before he started. An equally loud voice that sounded like Salem told him to tell someone everything. He felt as if everyone were watching him at dinner, waiting for something to go wrong, a sense of paranoia that made it hard to eat. He wanted to crawl back into bed and ignore the world, now that he finally was in a position where he could do that more than once. The noise in his head was bad enough he was onboard with doing homework, something he normally avoided until the last second humanly possible.

That was where he was when Freddy finished tutoring Eugene in English (using several collected _Black Widow_ issues to illustrate literary points, to the surprise of no one). Billy stared down his creative writing assignment as if he could will it to write itself for him, everything else done, dreading the concept of expressing himself. Teachers either read too much into that kind of thing or they accused him of not trying when he _had_ , and either way it was a miserable experience.

“This sucks,” he told Freddy, well aware that Freddy had a much easier time with these assignments than he did. “I wish I was as creative as you. I can’t come up with anything.”

“You could try standing on your head,” his geeky friend suggested brightly, sitting down on the bed, presumably to reread another part of his comic collection yet again. “I read online that some artists do that to get through artist block. Or you could listen to music like Mary’s girlfriend does when she needs to focus on her physics homework. She swears it makes her thirty percent more efficient at writing.”

Billy blinked, surprised. “Her girlfriend’s taking physics?”

“Oh, right, I keep forgetting you haven’t met Shay yet. Yeah, she’s going to major in astrophysics, actually, which sucks because all the schools she applied to are really far away from the one Mary got into.” Freddy set the comics down, frowning to himself. “I guess there’s not a lot of schools that offer that, so that was kind of going to happen no matter where Mary got in. It sucks, a lot.”

“I’d say we should try to avoid that, but I don’t even know what I’d want to major in,” Billy admitted with a shrug, doodling on the margin of his notebook rather than getting any real, productive work done. “I never really thought about it until I got moved here, you know?”

Freddy gave him a look he couldn’t read. Sometimes it was hard to tell what was going on in his head. After the awkward silence stretched on for an unbearably long half a minute, though, he blurted out with all his usual tact: “Are you mad at me?”

“I’m mad at _me_ ,” he corrected him, having anticipated this. “I didn’t want to freak you out, and I did, and I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

“I mean, mostly? I don’t know. I feel like I’m going to ask something else that’s stupid and freak _you_ out, and I don’t have a book for this kind of thing.” Freddy held up his phone and added, “Also Google was really not helpful. Fifty bajillion websites all about relationship advice and maybe three that aren’t trash.”

He ran a hand through his hair, trying to come up with a way to fix things. “When I was dating this guy last year, we talked about what we could talk about, if that makes sense? We made a deal that he wouldn’t ask about it if I needed to shove him away mid-make out and I wouldn’t ask about it if he freaked out about food.”

“Food?”

“Salem had an eating disorder. Still does, he just thinks he doesn’t. My luck with guys is right up there with my luck with flying.” He grinned, self-deprecating, but Freddy winced at the reference, or maybe at the idea of eating disorders in general. It was hard to tell.

“So is that why you broke up?” Freddy asked, in that sort of I-don’t-care tone that told Billy he definitely cared about the answer. “You mentioned you messed something up with him, but you didn’t say what.”

He rubbed his forehead with his hand. “Yes. No. I was kind of a dick. I still am, sometimes, but I’m definitely a lot better now that you’re around.”

“…Billy,” he said quietly, touched. “That’s – I – thanks.”

“I, uh.” Billy tapped his pen against the paper, leaving ink dots in an aimless pattern on the paper. “I mean, it’s not a compliment, it’s just a fact that I was a jerk when I got here. Or I feel like I was, anyway, but I had enough fun with you to get my head out of my ass, so thanks, I guess is what I’m trying to say.”

Freddy pushed his backpack off the bed and gave Billy a look. When his leg was bothering him, he basically had to summon Billy over to him to get affection, and Billy was more than happy to oblige, sitting down beside him and pulling him into a hug. There was something deeper here that he couldn’t quite put into words, a comfort in knowing that he didn’t have to worry about Freddy ever trying to get him to do something he didn’t want to do physically. He also didn’t have the frustration he had with Salem, who never seemed truly comfortable with his own attraction to Billy. Freddy had some insecurities, sure, but he was completely at ease with Billy.

It felt good to be with someone who wanted him there but who would let him go. The thought was confusing. The feelings were not.

Billy cleared his throat, trying to refocus. “Anyway, like I was saying – I think I’m not gonna be okay talking about sex for a while. I thought I was, but I guess I’m not. But I’m going to fix that. Victor and Rosa got me set up with a therapist, so. I’ll be fine.”

Freddy’s eyes were warm with all the concern and love that Billy had never known he needed until he got it. “Are you sure?”

“I’ve got you and I’ve got a pro handling this. What more could I need?”

Kissing was hard when grinning like idiots, but not impossible.

 

* * *

 

 

Billy woke up on Sunday to a squeal from Darla so loud that it pierced through the house.

After so long in various foster homes, he could tell a happy squeal from an upset one, which Freddy apparently couldn’t, given he jolted awake hard enough to shake the bunk bed. After a moment, they could hear Darla repeatedly yelling ‘thank you’, and a voice Billy couldn’t identify, low and melodic. Billy climbed down to the floor and handed Freddy his crutch out of force of habit. Sometimes he worried it might come across as condescending; he knew some disabled foster kids didn’t like people helping them without their consent. If Freddy disliked it, though, he didn’t show it, yawning sleepily and getting to his feet with that post-sleep slowness only tired teenagers could manage.

“Freddy! Billy!” Darla poked her head into the room, beaming. “Get up, sleepyheads! Shay got everybody presents!”

The name took a second for Billy to connect to Mary’s girlfriend. “Even me?” he asked, genuinely shocked. “Wait, why?” 

“’Cause she had stuff come up and couldn’t get us our Christmas presents on time and she felt bad,” Darla explained with a shrug, as if random gifts were a standard thing for her. “And she got you a – oops. I almost ruined it!” Clamping one hand over her own mouth, scandalized, she darted back out into the hall as quickly as she’d come to go shout, “Eugene! You’ll never guess what Auntie Shay got you!”

Billy had no idea how he was supposed to feel about a stranger getting him things. He opened his mouth to ask Freddy if he should change out of his pajamas first, but Freddy was already halfway out the door. Smoothing his Superman shirt with his hands and running his fingers through his hair to flatten it, he followed. He could hear Mary, Rosa and Shay before he saw them, talking and giggling, lighthearted and friendly, familiar in the same way family was. Mary’s arm was around her girlfriend’s waist, head on the taller girl’s shoulder. Instantly, Billy liked Shay on the grounds that she made Mary smile like that, like everything wrong was right again; after how stressed Mary had been about college, the change between her without Shay and her with Shay was night and day. She was thin in that muscular, dancer sort of way, tall and beanpole shaped, with black hair piled into a braided bun atop her head. Her skin was darker than Darla’s and cool-toned, and flawless in a way that made Billy self-conscious for ever having had a zit in his life. There was an unfamiliar car parked out in the driveway, which explained how she’d gotten all the gifts over here on her own, but it wasn’t expensive looking enough to justify where she had procured all the boxes from.

“Retro gaming isn’t uncool now, is it?” Shay asked Eugene, who was staring into a large, opened box in silent shock. “If it’s too hipstery for you, I can come up with something else.”

Eugene gazed at her in open wonder. “Retro gaming is awesome and so are you. Are you sure-”

“I never have the time for any of it anymore,” she shrugged, almost apologetic. “I know you’ll do them justice more than I can.”

He launched himself at her, hugging her as tightly as he could manage. Rosa laughed, ruffling his hair. “Now, what do you say?”

“Thank you!”

Billy didn’t have to wonder what she’d gotten Pedro. He walked by carrying a box of vinyl records, clearly having ascended to a higher plain of music nerd, serene and smiling. There was a box marked ‘Nerdcore: The Freddening’, which Freddy was opening with obvious glee.

He should have been happy. It shouldn’t have felt weird.

Other families had people like this, he knew. He knew that sometimes people’s spouses or whoever they were dating got close to the family and got involved on a deeper level. At one foster home he’d been in when he was five, a boyfriend of one of the older girls offered guitar lessons to the kids there and provided sort of an amateur music therapy. He’d been a semi-brother figure with a cool ponytail who brought them all candy sometimes. That was not on the same level as this, where everybody was close and at ease with each other. Everything seemed almost picturesque, wholesome in an unfamiliar way. The whole thing smacked of Hallmark movies. He stood awkwardly out of the way, an outsider trying to process the foreign ways of new territory.

 _I always thought my mom and I would have Christmases like this._ That hurt. His Christmas with the Vasquez family had been idyllic, fun, and involved a lot of laughter and being told embarrassing stories of Christmases past by Victor. They’d had presents, which wasn’t always a given at foster homes, had dinner, and gone to a semi-awkward church service purely because Darla was playing an angel in the Christmas play. But seeing Shay doling out gifts was blatantly maternal in a way that drove home the fact that his mother would never, ever do this for him. He swallowed past a lump in his throat.

Belatedly, Shay noticed him, and detached from Mary to approach, holding out her hand for him to shake. Her smile seemed genuinely enough despite having never met him before. “You must be Billy. I’m Scheherazade, but everyone calls me Shay. I hope you don’t mind that I got you something – I know it’s a little weird, since we haven’t met and all.”

“It’s cool.” He took her hand, after a flicker of a pause. “Sorry I don’t have anything for you.”

“Oh, please, I hoard too many things already,” she snorted, smiling yet looking sheepish and a touch embarrassed. “Nobody needs to give me anything. You’re doing me a favor by helping me clear out my room. I'm a total hoarder, seriously.”

He wasn’t sure how to respond to that, but he didn’t have to. She moved like a silent shadow, flitting over to the dining room table and back to him before he could say anything else, handing him a light grey jacket with dark grey detailing, not unlike a military jacket. Billy could tell it was a little too big for him at a glance. It was also the nicest thing he had ever owned, crisp and clean and made of thick, sturdy material that he was sure had to be expensive. She’d cut the tags out, so he couldn’t tell for sure, but he was sure it was some kind of brand name clothing. He'd be surprised if she'd worn it a dozen times. Billy knew foster kids who shoplifted professionally who wouldn't have dared take this.

"Mary said you only had the one coat, and I thought you might like something lighter for spring."

"Yeah." He swallowed, unable to take his eyes off of it. "Yeah, that's cool."

“Billy?” Shay said, brow furrowing, “Do you not like it?”

“I love it, I… shit.” He wiped at his eyes, embarrassed when he was tearing up. Flustered, he glanced around the room. Eugene and Pedro were off enjoying their presents, and Darla was in her own little world playing with a doll whose eyes changed color when she pulled a string. Rosa gave him an encouraging smile, while Mary was gazing at Shay as if she were falling in love all over again. Freddy gave him a thumbs up, the dork. _Holy shit, this is like a Hallmark movie. I’m living a Hallmark movie._ He took a second to find his voice. “Thanks. I – I’ve never had anything new, so I – um – thanks. This is perfect.”

And it was, but not because of the jacket.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The jacket in question is a Tripp NYC brand jacket, if you're want to Google it for reference. I think you can still find it secondhand. (New Tripp clothing retails for 70-100 USD.)


	9. Okay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A therapy session, in summation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: This chapter contains discussion of what can either be classified as grooming or sexual abuse depending on the laws in your state/country. Either way it's uncomfortable and if you have triggers related to that, this is not the chapter for you.
> 
> Work is supposed to be a disaster today so here's your quickie one-scene update that thank freaking God is devoid of a flashback because none of you want to read that and I don't want to write it.

“So, how are you feeling?” Dr. Malloy asked, which was both a stereotypical therapist thing to ask and totally fair, given Billy was both trying to play it cool and bouncing his leg nervously at the same time. 

“About therapy or in general?” he replied, answering a question with a question. “In general, I think I’m okay – but I keep thinking I am and then having panic attacks. Well, my foster parents say they’re panic attacks, I never used to call them that.”

“But you did have them in the past?” his therapist inquired, raising his eyebrows slightly. Dr. Malloy was light-haired and dark complexioned, with cinnamon colored eyes. His face was perpetually concerned, empathetic, and it helped a lot.

That didn’t mean Billy was happy about answering that. “I guess. It’s usually way more spaced out, though, not twice in one week. And it doesn’t make sense, because everything’s better for me now than it’s ever been, so I don’t get it, you know?”

Dr. Malloy nodded. “It’s a strange concept even to psychologists, but in essence: your subconscious mind knows it’s safe now to feel and express the pain. In a way, it’s a good sign that you feel close to your family and safe in their house. I do understand, though, that it’s disconcerting. I hope we can address the roots of that pain eventually, and find ways to manage the panic attacks in the meantime. I can’t promise to fix everything overnight, Billy, and I won’t lie to you that I can. But I _can_ promise to do everything I can to improve your quality of life.”

“…dude, that is the most superhero style description of therapy ever. You’re, like, Batman level cool.”

He chuckled, a startled snort of sound. “If only my kids thought I was Batman level cool. Thanks, Billy. I hope that we can use sentiment to build to a point where you can be forthcoming with your concerns.”

“Did, um,” he tried not to look too worried, “did my foster parents tell you what I told them? I mean, do you know why I’m here?”

“They didn’t. However, given my specialization is childhood abuse and the depressing, unacceptable rate of abuse in the foster care system, I can assume that you’re here for past trauma. Correct?”

Billy nodded, throat closing up. He cleared his throat, looking at the cactus on the windowsill and not at Dr. Malloy. “Yeah. Pretty much. I’m not sure where to start, though? Things were weird and then they got worse and that got weird, too.”

“Well, a good place to start, I find, is with something that’s recently been troubling you. Can you think of something in that category you’re comfortable talking about?”

“The choking game.” He paused, reflecting on Victor’s stunned face in the past. “Which I know is probably not something I should think is okay most of the time, but I can’t do the other thing right now. I think I’d throw up if I tried. Besides, it's what gave me one of my panic attacks recently.”

“Then we can start with the choking game. I’m afraid I’m an old man,” Dr. Malloy noted dryly, getting a snort out Billy, who clocked the doctor at maybe forty, forty-five tops, “So you’ll need to fill me in on what that is.”

As with Victor, Billy went over the rules of the game, adding in some details about how some kids would insist they needed somebody to keep lookout and how most kids who played it were either really little or borderline teens. There were some differences between how it was played in some places, but the important part was why he'd participated. Billy Batson had been determined from a very young age to reunite himself with his mother, no matter what it took or what he had to do. He had to find her. He needed to have her back in his life again. He’d been too young to make money on his own, and so he’d made a decision he kind of knew was stupid at the time, again and again, bearing through the pain for a chance to keep looking. He’d expected to tear up, but instead he found himself feeling defensive of his past self.

“I wasn’t stupid. I was trying to fix my life. Nobody got that except J-” He froze, mid-syllable. “Except my only real friend.”

“Your only real friend at the time, or now?” the doctor asked, eyebrows lowering slightly. “You indicated you’ve formed some bonds with your foster siblings.”

“At the time,” he corrected, conceding the point. “I have more friends now, definitely. But I was kind of a loser and a jerk back then, and I kept getting put in the same foster homes as this guy, so we got close. Really close. After he found me passed out from getting choked this one time, I kissed him, and we sort of… I don’t know, it was weird, because we were definitely close before that, too…”

Billy trailed off. How much was too much to say on day one? How much made him sound too messed up to help? His throat closed up, memories of Salem’s horrified eyes when he learned some of the worst of it playing out in his mind’s eye. That was when Salem suggested therapy to begin with, which at the time had made Billy angry. That, too, was complicated. He hated that Salem thought he needed help at the time, but it was so, so gratifying when the older boy told him, _‘This is not normal. You’re not crazy for thinking this isn’t normal, Billy Bat.’_ He wanted to hear that again, from a doctor with a degree who knew this field. He didn’t want to get judged for not catching on earlier that something was wrong. He truly, deeply didn’t want to admit that he still loved Jesse, that he still had dreams about him, that when he saw kids playing in the park he thought of the good times with him, that he still remembered the birthday Jesse had stolen him three pounds of hot wings and a copy of his favorite book as the best birthday he’d ever had.

“You use the word weird often in describing your life,” Dr. Malloy observed. “Weird doesn’t necessarily indicate whether something was good or bad, but it does tell me you feel your experiences were unusual. Could you go into why that is a little more, so I can get a better idea of what you mean?”

“I guess I feel weird in that, like, most kids aren’t thinking about dating when they’re ten? But I had a huge crush on this kid named Elio. He always stood up for me and we liked a lot of the same video games, and I kissed him before I kissed J- Jay.” He was going to have to use a name, but he couldn’t use Jesse’s real name, for reasons he couldn’t truly figure out. “After Elio got transferred to another foster home and then adopted out, I feel like a normal kid wouldn’t have gotten with another guy that fast, but I did. That’s weird, right?”

His therapist shrugged, although not dismissively. “It’s a statistical outlier to be interested in romance at that age, but it’s not inherently unhealthy. All people want to be loved, including children. You’re not at fault for seeking it out in that form.”

 _Oh thank God he doesn’t think I’m a weirdo._ That thought was followed by, _but he doesn’t know the whole story._

“When I met Jay, I was seven. He was eleven. I guess it’s normal to think some older kid is cool,” Billy glanced at Dr. Malloy, who nodded once, and found he had to look away to continue, “So I did whatever he wanted to do. He picked a lot of games and had a lot of ideas. We had a lot of fun, and we were always together when we could be, so nobody thought it was weird when I was nine and he started… I’m not sure there’s a word for it, he…” His stomach lurched, but he’d deliberately avoided eating breakfast to work around this problem and had picked at his lunch very, very lightly.

“Billy, you don’t have to tell me everything at once,” his therapist advised, slightly alarmed as the fourteen year old grabbed the trash can and hauled it closer to the chair in case he needed it. “And if you feel the need to, you can take your time.”

He groaned, scrubbing his face with a hand. “I’m not good with patience. Obviously. I didn’t wait around for social workers to get me info on my mom, so I broke like, fifty laws to try to find her. I just wanna get this out of my system and out of my head. I don’t want to keep shoving it down. I hate being afraid of my thoughts.”

To his surprise, Dr. Malloy didn’t try to talk him out of powering on. He seemed to have decided to let Billy take this at his own pace, which Billy both appreciated and kind of didn’t know what to do with. He wasn’t in the habit of talking about his life. For so long, he’d been focused on finding his mom and had learned not to engage with people emotionally, since he knew he’d be running away soon and saying goodbye to people. That and the way people talked over him about his mistakes had helped him develop a snarky, standoffish attitude that was normally okay, but that really didn’t help, here. His stomach hurt, twisting painfully, and he gripped at it with one hand. He didn’t want to sit around and wait to feel ready to talk. He wanted to shove it all out there so they could fix it. Billy didn’t wait to figure out his superpowers on the job, he and Freddy had thoroughly tested them. Hard as it was, it got results.

He wanted to get better. He took a few moments to take deep breaths, then kept going.

“I’d always gone to his room when I had nightmares. When I was nine, he started… touching me.” His voice had dropped to a near-whisper, hands shaking, one leg bouncing with ill-concealed nervous energy. “Just a hand up my shirt at first, or he’d grind against me in bed, I… I…”

Without warning, he gagged, barely grabbing the trash can in time. His stomach was mostly empty, but he couldn’t help coughing up everything that was there, dry heaving as the memories surged back in full. How had he been so stupid? How had he let himself get talked into that? What was _wrong_ with him? But he knew the answer, he knew why he’d gone along with it. _You liked it, you sick freak, you **liked** it._ He wasn’t sure when the first time was that he’d gotten hard, when he’d started squeaking and squirming when Jesse licked him, when he’d started to grind back against him. The exact moment something inside him had changed was lost to time. Everything had been gradual, until that night when he was ten and everything slammed into high gear. Prior to that, somehow he hadn’t connected it to what it would lead to. It was fun, it was good and it was with Jesse. It was okay.

Nothing was okay. He stayed doubled over the trash can for three minutes, until he could finally lean back in the chair, too tired to think, let alone speak. Dr. Malloy handed him a Diet Coke from the mini-fridge in his office, aware that water would hurt more to swallow. Billy felt himself shiver without being able to stop it. His throat burned, with acid and also with the memory of Jesse’s mouth against it, murmuring, coaxing him through it. Dr. Malloy made some kind of note on his clipboard, which Billy was willing to bet was just ‘WTF’ written over and over again.

“Billy,” his therapist said softly, “I respect that you’re trying to get better, and I appreciate you confiding in me. But you don’t have to push yourself this hard. You’re allowed to be uncomfortable with something, to take a while to work up to it – you don’t have to go into any detail you don’t want to or volunteer any information that’s going to do this to you. My job is to help you get to a point where you can process this, not to make you relive it in my office every week.”

“I just wanna get this over with,” he managed, voice a croak. “I don’t want to feel like this anymore, or be like this anymore. I want to be – I want to be okay.”

“And you will be. But you need to cut yourself some slack, and be gentle with yourself. You can take time to heal. You deserve it.”

Tears sprang to his eyes. He couldn’t come up with a response to that. He’d gone here to pull himself together for his boyfriend and his family. Nobody had ever told him in such blatant, explicit terms before that he deserved anything. As much as he hated the idea of having to come here every week for months, he found himself relenting, letting himself let go of the idea of going into the worst of it from the get-go.

“Okay. Yeah, okay.” He took a deep breath, and nodded. “I can try that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like this chapter in summary is just:
> 
> Dr. Malloy: Take things at your own pace.  
> Billy: *tries to get to everything right away because patience isn't his thing and also he's fourteen*  
> Dr. Malloy: Okay maybe we need to go over the concept of pacing itself...


	10. Mistakes, part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The therapy section of this chapter has some rather frank discussion of underage sexuality. It's not written to be sexy, and it's not massively detailed because frankly that wouldn't serve the story, but if that's not material you're comfortable with, please don't read this. Do not read material you know will be upsetting to you. Self-care extends to reading.
> 
> Also: please do not make any judgments about Billy even in your head for having some hypersexuality as a result of abuse. I know this isn't the most pleasant chapter, but that's not his fault.

He got, now, why Salem avoided food like the plague.

Eating was a lot harder when his stomach twisted unpleasantly when he saw Rosa and Victor giving him concerned looks, when Freddy paused for a second before touching him, when he woke up from strange and chilling dreams that were half memory, half nightmare. If he could have, he would have avoided family meal times entirely. Billy felt as if they were watching him. They weren’t. He knew they weren’t, yet he found himself wanting to avoid every single meal entirely, even at school, where other kids only stopped by their table to gush about Superman with Freddy and barely noticed Billy existed. He had to force himself to keep acting normal, including eating at a normal-ish pace and eating a more or less normal amount.

This was not going to beat him. The past wasn’t going to run his life in the here and now. If he had to force himself to do normal things for awhile while he got through this, he would, because he finally had people to get better for besides his theoretical mom. He had siblings, parents and a boyfriend who would be worried if he started acting weird. They needed him to be himself, even if he wasn’t completely sure who that was sometimes. Now that he had some stability in his life Billy was realizing his life had been largely devoid of hobbies outside of superheroes and movies. The latter wasn’t an option now that he was trying to nix the bad habits of his old life – sneaking into movies, casual shoplifting, and the rest of the things he no longer remembered where he’d learned. Playing by the rules was a strange thing, but he was a superhero now, so he had to try.

Being a superhero was still surreal. It should have been the most awesome thing ever. Instead, he found himself questioning why _he,_ of all people, had gotten the superpowers. He was a superhero fan, sure, which probably helped, but he was a casual fan compared to Freddy and, frankly, he was a mess. Superheroes weren’t supposed to find family dinners and fighting villains equal in difficulty.

A lot of things were harder now that he was actually letting himself think about the past, though, and family dinners were nothing compared to getting changed in the same room as Freddy.

He had no idea how attractive he actually was; if he was atrocious or cool, he couldn’t make that judgment call. Nobody had ever been into Billy primarily for how hot he was. Even Jesse, who had probably complimented his appearance the most out of anyone, only really laid that on thick after they’d – anyway. The reality was that Freddy was, in Billy’s opinion, better looking. He had a great smile, an expressive face, and perfect hair. Less obviously, Freddy had hit the part of puberty where he got hair, while Billy hadn’t. In theory, that shouldn’t have mattered. In practice, he had huge issues with the fact that his body still looked the way it did when he was with Jesse. Billy had no idea if he looked okay, but he didn’t feel like he did.

Also, no matter how much Dr. Malloy insisted that Billy’s reactions were part of having been abused, he felt weird about noticing Freddy’s body. It shouldn’t have been weird. They were dating – for a definition of dating where superpowered flights around town and playing video games against each other counted as a date – and they shared a room. Looking at him probably wasn’t bad. Looking at him as often as Billy did, in the context he did, was probably bad. He couldn’t help how revved up his body got, or how he’d completely lose his train of thought when Freddy took his shirt off. He tried very hard not to think about the obvious fact that they shared a room and, in the world of foster kids, nothing facilitated sex quite so readily. He tried not to think about the fact that since Freddy had virtually no experience with romance, Billy could probably pull a Jesse and talk him into things.

_That_ was horrifying. That kept him up at night. He was a creep. He was a creep, he shouldn’t be thinking like this, he was a jackass of a boyfriend for even entertaining the concept of what they could get away with and he hated it. If he could have, he would have left, but that would’ve hurt Freddy more, so he was stuck.

Billy began to go out on patrol as a superhero – he read comics, he knew this was how crime got stopped – and was incredibly relieved to find his Shazam form didn’t have the same body issues. The magic didn’t extend to the Champion getting laid, apparently, or maybe the psychological shift of being superpowered and on a mission kept his head in a better place. Either way, he felt a lot more sane and a lot less like a pervert when he was in Shazam form. Crime had just started to pick up again, creating a wealth of distractions, and he was glad he could go do something that was unambiguously, purely altruistic and good. There was no way to make stopping a bank robbery weird. (Freddy was uncomfortable with the bank teller sobbing into his shoulder about how she was sure she was going to die, but Billy was amused afterwards that even in superhero form, Freddy was the one people identified as the more huggable one.) Billy had issues, sure, but lightning-blasting a gun out of someone’s hands before they could shoot someone innocent reminded him there were more important things than his problems. His problems were in the past. These people needed him in the present.

Most of the crimes they came across were assaults, robberies or car accidents, all of which were somehow less bad than what Billy was braced for. Billy kept waiting for some kind of crime to pop up that they weren’t able to handle. Eventually, the odds had to run out on them always managing to stumble upon a crime in progress or as it started. Some day they were going to have to figure out a murder or a shooting or something. That he couldn’t fix everything actually really messed with him now that he had a family. He knew what it was like to have people he loved, now. When he walked a girl home after she was mugged, he thought of Mary. When he had to tell a woman her husband had been in a car accident, he thought of Rosa and Victor. As much as Darla insisted she was basically grown up, he thought of her when he saw kids out and about, and the urge to try to protect everyone was surprising in its’ intensity.

Still, the fact that he had enough of a family to get worked up about crime instead of looking out for number one made him feel better about himself. Seeing his superhero self in the paper was enough to take the edge off of having wet dreams he very definitely didn’t want and hearing about Shazam on the news (under yet another new superhero name, again) made it possible to get through breakfast.

It wasn’t perfect. But it was enough.

 

* * *

 

“Dude, you got _another_ plant?”

Billy side-eyed Dr. Malloy’s growing army of green, which took up two wall shelves and the windowsill and, now, a large fern on his desk. He liked Dr. Malloy’s office, for the most part. There was a squishy couch, a beanbag chair, an armchair, and enough color to avoid the feeling of a sterile hospital-style environment. He got the feeling Malloy had been adding things to the office over the course of years, sort of like a living room. There was enough of a homey feel to it than Billy threw his backpack down, flopped onto the couch and side-eyed the plant like he’d been doing this for months, despite having been having sessions for three weeks.

March was upon them, thawing the city bit by bit only to get hit with more snow. Outside of Malloy’s office, there was precious little greenery in the world. Billy was thinking about getting some plants for the lair, which was considerably warmer, but he wasn’t sure if it went with the superhero/wizard mystique of the place. _Note to self: ask Freddy about lair decorating later._

“You’re half right – this plant is new to the office, but I didn’t get a new one, I moved it from home to here… so I could get another one for my house,” the doctor explained, getting a groan from Billy. “Yeah, that was my son’s reaction. Between that and the sweaters, I’ve been informed I’m ‘chronically uncool’.”

“Cool’s in the eye of the beholder,” Billy pointed out, settling in on the couch for another session of deep discomfort and trying to puzzle out how much he could say without sending himself into a panic. “ _I_ think you’re cool.”

“Thanks. So, did you have anything in specific you wanted to talk about today?”

That was always an interesting question in these sessions. Sometimes Billy could word-vomit five sessions’ worth of topics in a sentence. Sometimes they could go over a single one for the length of a session and not make progress. Either way, Dr. Malloy had decided early on that while Billy got to pick the topic, he had to pick _a_ topic, singular, and had to make an effort not to say anything that was going to induce anxiety or a downward spiral of thoughts. He appreciated honesty in his patients, but he also appreciated it when they exercised at least a little self-care. For a kid like Billy, whose single-minded determination to find his mother had taught him that the best way to get results was to power through pain and hardship without pause, establishing boundaries and self-control was difficult.

In all fairness to Billy, his past was such a complicated kind of mess that it was fair not to have a starting point in mind. For now, he still couldn’t get into Jesse and the mess of how things had progressed. Now that he was seeing Dr. Malloy twice a week, he found himself going over the way they’d been prior to that and the way Billy had tried to function outside of Jesse’s sphere of influence. He would’ve felt bad about it had Dr. Malloy not told him that both were actually pretty valuable in understanding things.

“I have so much stuff, man, it’s ridiculous. Uh, I guess right now I’m sort of still dealing with the whole… arousal… thing. Is there a word for that?”

“There’s several, but they’re all inconsistent and frankly not useful in actually fixing the problem,” Dr. Malloy shrugged, dismissing the terminology debate he’d had with colleagues in the past in favor of addressing the behavior itself, and more importantly, the way said behavior impacted Billy psychologically. “It’s more helpful for the purposes of your treatment for you to discuss it in your own terms.”

Billy rubbed at his forehead, feeling the words tangle up in his head before he could even start speaking. “Right, so like I told you, I get weirded out by my dreams, and my thoughts, and just. Anything about sex. It’s a whole thing, and it sucks. And I was talking about my really bad track record with guys with Freddy, ‘cause he thinks there’s something wrong with him because he hasn’t dated anyone before – there’s not, our school is just full of assholes who don’t know a good guy when they see one – and I kind of realized I never got into how the sex thing killed my last attempt at having a boyfriend. Which, you know, is totally fair. Nobody should put up with my random hard-ons. I get it. But I should probably fix that and you said talking about the ‘context’ helps, right?”

“Context is a vague term in therapy, but yes. The more we go over, the more we can establish what circumstances are triggering this in you.” Ideally, he’d like to go over with Billy how the abuse was truly the starting point, but not now. The risk of another panic attack was simply too high and the payoff wouldn’t offset the steps back they’d make in terms of comfort.

“Right, well. We can establish that someone just being my boyfriend, like, _at all_ is the circumstance. Which was awkward, but Salem was okay at ignoring it, so we just sort of pretended it wasn’t happening for a while? It worked. Then I totally screwed everything up.” He grabbed one of the cushions from the couch and buried his face in it. “Why did nobody tell me therapy was going to be embarrassing? This sucks.”

Dr. Malloy nodded, though he couldn’t be seen. “Just remember all of this is confidential and never leaves this room.”

“Yeah, that helps. Thanks, dude.” He removed the cushion from his face, more to be heard than out of any real desire to keep talking. “I really wanted to f- can I swear in here? I try not to drop F-bombs anymore. Rosa doesn’t like it.”

“You can’t say anything I haven’t heard on X-Box Live. Go ahead.”

Billy snorted, trying to imagine his sweater-wearing, plant-collecting dork of a therapist as a gamer. “Right. I wanted to fuck Salem. A lot. A distracting amount. Just, I had no chill about that? He wanted to ignore it, I wanted to think he’d get over it after a while, and then three months in I got tired of him shoving me off of him every time one of us got hard. I get it _now_ , but then it felt like he didn’t really like me or like I’d done something wrong or – I’m using the word ‘like’ a lot.”

“If it helps, use it. It’s fine.”

“Thanks. So, um. Shit this is embarrassing, I kind of used to go hide in his room when I could. Jay and I weren’t on the greatest terms anymore, with how freaked out he was getting about being eighteen and having to go get his own place to stay and a job and all that at the end of the school year. His temper was way out of control. Salem didn’t _have_ a temper. He was – he felt like home. I wanted to stay with him forever. We could talk about anything or nothing. We were mellow together. He was mellow. So I didn’t get why he drew the line at PDA and I really, really didn’t get what his hang ups were about boning. I mean, if you’re both into each other and you’re not going to get caught by the adults in the house, what’s the problem?”

That was a rhetorical question, but Dr. Malloy seemed to have an answer. “You mentioned he was older than you, when you were going over your non-Jay boyfriends. That could be part of it, depending on how old he was.”

“He’s three and a half years older than me, it’s not that weird.” Was it? He’d have to look that up later. Or was it okay, and only weird if there was sex involved? Or- no. He needed to stop going down these rabbit holes of thoughts about this stuff. “He thought it was… I don’t know, wrong, I guess. He kept saying it’d be taking advantage of me. We had the same fight four freaking times. I just… couldn’t picture dating a guy and not doing it. It didn’t make sense. But I kind of wore him down, eventually, sort of. He got less awkward about me sleeping in his bed and then he got okay with any sleep-grinding I did, which – I know it sounds obvious, but I didn’t know it was normal before he told me? I thought I was literally the only guy who had those kind of dreams. Salem was always telling me I wasn’t a freak or a weirdo. I loved him. I _still_ love him. I think that was what sold him on it, when I stopped calling it fucking – again, sorry for the F-bomb – and started talking about it like that.”

“So you two did…?” he trailed off, unsure which word Billy would prefer he, as a therapist, apply to the situation.

Billy’s face turned red. “Once. He never forgave himself. And I kind of hate me, now, for pushing it. I felt like Jay afterwards. I still do. It’s why I’m scared I’ll ruin everything again. I don’t want to lose somebody else over not being able to keep it in my pants.”

“For the sake of clarification: he left you after you were intimate?” Dr. Malloy asked, voice unbearably paternal and understanding, too understanding given how things had actually gone down. Billy was tempted to let him believe that, lie to his therapist and tell him things weren’t his fault as much as they were, but the self-hatred inside him was so violent it pushed the truth out of him before he could give in to the temptation to paint himself as the victim.

“I left _him_. I got a lead on my mom a few days later and things were so weird between us that it was easier to run away without saying anything. You know, _the exact same thing_ Jesse did to me later.”

Billy was not the victim in that. He was the monster.

And he knew it.


	11. Mistakes, part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look at me, learning how to set up future plot points.
> 
> Apologies for delays; work is weird this close to Easter so I've been trying to find time to write where and when I can.

He could feel his heartbeat, loud and getting louder. 

There was a sort of ‘oh shit’ feeling that followed the truth that never got any easier to deal with. Billy felt himself teeter on the brink of panic and maybe something close to selfish heartbreak, which he absolutely didn’t deserve to feel given how badly he’d treated Salem. He waited for Dr. Malloy to be horrified now that he knew. He knew Billy was messed up enough to deliberately try to get into someone’s pants and he knew he left that someone behind. Billy was terrible, he used people, he told Salem he loved him, wore down his defenses, and then left him alone in this merciless city. _That’s what you do_ , he thought, stomach churning. _You leave the people who love you. You were okay leaving the Vasquezs to go look for your mom, you gave up on finding Elio, you gave up on Jesse, you leave and leave and **how is that any different than your mom-**_

“You are not a monster, Billy. You are not a monster, and you are not abusive.” Dr. Malloy set his notebook aside, leaning forward. With Billy lying on the couch, the motion brought him closer to eye level. “I know you feel like you are, and that it’s not as simple as just having me say that. This is going to take some time to fix. And I won’t tell you that what you did was right. But I have seen monsters, young man. I have had patients who did horrible, unspeakably evil things, for far less, with less of a justification to their actions. I know evil. You made a mistake. That’s not the same thing.”

“I ruined his life,” Billy objected, voice cracking with sheer despair. “I messed everything up! We could’ve – we could’ve been good together, if I hadn’t been so obsessed with finding my mom and I hadn’t pushed him too far. I knew he had hang ups about being Muslim and gay and I knew he didn’t want to sleep with me and…”

“And do you think Jay is sitting around feeling bad about doing any of that to you?” his therapist asked, making the quick decision not to use the name Jesse. Billy had let that slip by accident, and pointing that out would only make him feel worse. Now was _not_ the time to focus on the original abuser, regardless. “Do you think he’s ever cried about what he pushed you to do?”

Billy couldn’t respond. He wanted to say yes. He wanted to think that the person who had been his best friend since he was seven was torn up over what had happened. But he couldn’t make himself say it, let alone believe it, not deep down.

“Do you think bad people – monsters, to use your word – do you think they have this kind of pain and regret over being monsters?”

He stared at his therapist and thought of Sivana. He thought about how the news had reported on the people he’d killed, his dad, his brother, and so many innocent people who didn’t do a thing to him to deserve that. Sivana hadn’t felt a twinge of regret, not even after he tried to drown a literal teenager in order to obtain power, not even after threatening children. Billy was not that kind of monster. He still had nightmares about what happened to Wyatt, and he wasn’t the one who hurt him – Jesse was, but Billy hated himself for being the one who brought the two into contact with each other. He’d barely slept when he’d gotten Elio booted from their foster home, had only been able to process the guilt when he found out Elio had been put in care of his sister. He still woke up some nights thinking about his mother, about her loud boyfriend inside the apartment, about how it might not be too late to try to help her.

After Salem, he had never entertained the idea that he’d sleep with someone, not seriously. Freddy would realize he deserved better or something first. Billy got worked up around him, instantly sometimes, without wanting to, but he always believed deep down that it was better not to keep moving things along. Because – and the thought turned his stomach – Billy knew Freddy was insecure despite being gorgeous, funny and smart. He knew he could’ve gotten into his pants by now if he tried. He didn’t try. He wouldn’t let himself hurt Freddy, wouldn’t touch him in a way that would mess him up, not when Freddy had been so good to him. If he wanted to, Billy was pretty sure he could dictate the pace and intensity of this relationship. One of them was a lot more experienced than the other, after all.

The thought of how badly he’d made Freddy feel already made him want to cry. He refused to contemplate touching him in any way that might make things worse. That was… maybe not good, but not _bad_ , either. He wasn’t bad. Possibly. Maybe.

_(Billy woke up to the sound of Salem praying._

_His first instinct was that he wanted to laugh, considering what they’d done last night. His second instinct, when he opened his eyes sleepily, was that he wanted to steal his boyfriend a bagel or something. Too many ribs were identifiable even in the low light of early morning, and when Salem went through the motions – Billy refused, point-blank, to learn what they were called or what he was saying or anything that might connect him to a Muslim dad who had walked away from him when he was barely three – it was hard to ignore the sharp edges of bone under his skin. Billy counted the ridges of his boyfriend’s spine. If he were the kind of kid to pray, which he wasn’t, he’d put his prayers towards fixing whatever it was inside Salem that made eating such a struggle. The few times Jesse had encountered Salem mid-prayer, he’d gone right for the throat, pointing out God hadn’t stopped Salem’s parents from dying, or saved Salem from the nightmare that was the foster care system. Fighting with him over it was the first time Billy had really gotten the older boy angry at him for a disagreement and stood his ground._

_He didn’t understand Salem’s relationship with God. But he figured he didn’t have to get it in order to respect it._

_Slipping out of bed, Billy shuddered at the cold and grabbed the nearest piece of clothing off the floor, one of Salem’s many, many layers of black. He’d never seen anyone in foster care who had such a_ thing _about clothing. It was like he thought if he drowned himself in layers, he could fade into the background. Or perhaps it was yet another facet of Salem’s attempts to take control of his life; his room, his clothes and his manners were flawless, and between the three he’d managed to create some peace in the midst of this chaotic city. Salem’s black hoodie smelled like sandalwood, clean linen and rain. Billy breathed in deeply and zipped it up around him, effectively stealing it for the day._

_Waiting for Salem to finish what he was doing, he sat down beside him after a pause to lean against him. “Hey,” he murmured, pecking Salem on the cheek. “Good morning.”_

_“Hey.” The older boy reached over and started idly finger-combing Billy’s hair, which stuck up in a dozen directions this early in the morning. “Are you okay?”_

_“I feel like I should be asking you, dude.” When his boyfriend gave him a concerned look, he sighed and relented, “Okay, okay. I’m fine. I would’ve said something if I wasn’t. Um, honestly, nobody’s… nobody’s ever done what you did, for me, before. So I might’ve looked freaked out, but I wasn’t, I was just surprised.”_

_Salem blinked at him, surprised, before leaning over to kiss him. “I love you, B.B. I can’t think of anybody else I’d ever want to do something like that with. Last night was… I don’t know, I guess I just realized that I may be far from sinless, but I’m not Jesse.”_

_“Definitely not,” Billy agreed, grabbing Salem’s free hand and squeezing it. “You’re practically a saint compared to him. And me, actually. Every time you break a law there’s some big plan or reason behind it, and you do a lot of stuff to help other people, and… I just, I hate saying it, because you know how Jesse meant it when he said it, but I…”_

_“You love me?” he asked, finishing the thought for him, and was decent enough not to comment on the way the words still made Billy lock up a little. He knew how Jesse had turned those words on him years ago. He knew that Billy, deep down, still cared about the blond despite everything. Someday, they needed to have a serious conversation about that, and about how unhealthy it was, but this wasn’t the time. Salem smiled when Billy nodded and pressed a kiss to his temple. “You don’t have to say it for it to be real. It’s okay.” He wrapped his arms around Billy, drawing him in close. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”_

_Billy curled up against him, nestling into Salem’s chest, and listened to his heartbeat. He could see lingering doubts in Salem’s eyes that he wasn’t voicing, remnants of regret, but for now, they could ignore it. Later, it would bubble up when the older boy’s legendary patience eventually failed him in private, and they would have one of those fights where neither of them would know what to say, and it would be a disaster. Now, though, Billy just let himself be held. He didn’t want to think about tomorrow, or about the religious implications, or about the cold, hard legal fact that Salem was nearly old enough to make this something they couldn’t repeat in good conscience. He wanted to feel loved._

_And he was.)_

“I’m such a complete jackass,” Billy muttered, wincing at himself. “I try to be all heroic and I want to make up for all the dumb stuff I’ve done – and that’s a lot, just, it’s so much – and I come in here playing victim when I’m the bad guy. You don’t get it. I knew he was going to freak out about it later and I pushed him anyway.”

Malloy’s voice was gentler than it had a right to be, given what Billy had done. “Do you really think what happened when you were nine and what happened when you were thirteen are the same?”

“Dude, name one way it _isn’t_.”

That was a rhetorical statement, but his therapist arched an eyebrow and replied, “You said Jay made you feel like if you didn’t have sex with him, you weren’t really in love with him. You were afraid of him because of his temper and his mood swings. Do you really think that’s the same dynamic you had with Salem? Do you think he was afraid to say no, or that he felt he _had_ to do something he’d already successfully said no to without consequences prior?” He gave Billy a look that both analytical and not unkind. “Billy, you said yourself Salem had a long history of working with social services staff. If he had wanted to get you removed or felt afraid of you, he could have done something else. He certainly wouldn’t have asked you to stay in his room – and ask is a key word, there. He asked you to stay. You asked him to be intimate with you. Asking means leaving room for an answer you don’t want to hear. Jay didn’t ask you to do things. And that is a _crucial_ difference between you two that I need you to understand. Abusers don’t ask, they demand."

“When I was nine-”

Dr. Malloy held up a hand to silence him. “Asking wherein the answer ‘no’ has long-term ramifications emotionally and socially is not asking. It’s a demand that happened to include a question mark. If I ‘ask’ a patient to tell me their darkest secrets and they know that if they don’t, I’ll have them locked up, I haven’t really given them a choice, now, have I?”

Billy didn’t have a comeback for that. _I loved Jesse. I still do. Did he… no, shut up, he loved me back, or he wouldn’t have helped me look for my mom, he was just hurting from his parents dying… but he didn’t give me a choice… but I hurt Salem… but…_

His therapist clapped his hands, forcing Billy out of his racing thoughts.

“Listen to me. You are not a bad person, Billy. You are not a hormonal person, either, regardless of what you seem to think. Early exposure to the concept of sex and sexual arousal has made you view it differently than other people, and yes, you were quite possibly a pushy boyfriend. That is not the same thing as assaulting someone, disregarding their consent, or manipulating them. You are not a monster. You’re not an asshole. You’re a person who tried to use love to heal and your idea of love was warped by factors completely out of your control, and none of that, absolutely _none_ of it, was your fault.”

He couldn’t speak. He tried and all that came out was a sob that startled him in its’ intensity. Clamping a hand over his mouth to muffle the sound, he wondered how he’d gone years, literal, actual years without crying, only for his family and therapist to pull the tears out of him without making much of an effort at all. _Malloy said the panic attacks started up because I’m safe now. Is that why I can cry now?_ Billy remembered his inability to cry when Aliciana, who had been a semi-therapist and semi-mom to him for seven months at one foster home, died. He hadn’t been able to cry. He wanted to, he needed to, but all he could do was break things with Jesse in a junkyard, as if the crack of shattered glass was his way of sobbing. Something had been broken inside him then that wasn’t anymore.

Back then, he’d assumed he was a bad person. Good people cried when a friend died. Good people cried when they left their boyfriend, when their long-term recurring boyfriend left them, when they ran out of leads on their family. So he’d accepted he wasn’t a good person. He would be one when he found his mother and changed for her, with her love. That was the plan. In the wake of the realization she never loved him the way he loved her, he had felt himself spiral lower again, down to that dark place where he almost couldn’t remember why he should keep living. Only Freddy had snapped him out of it. Freddy, and then the rest of the family. That was something a good person did, right, charging into the fight for them? Good people were motivated by others and their wellbeing.

He didn’t feel good or heroic or worthy of his superhero powers or Freddy, but he couldn’t put together an argument to defend his position.

“I messed up,” he noted quietly. His therapist nodded, which was somehow encouraging. “I really messed up. But I didn’t make Salem do anything he didn’t want to do… right? Dude, that’s what Jay said about me, and I believed him, I still kind of do, but Salem could’ve said no. He could have. And I would’ve whined about it but I wouldn’t have insulted him or whatever. So it’s…”

“It’s not the same,” Dr. Malloy finished for him, and this time, finally, Billy believed him.

 

* * *

 

 

Eugeniu Malloy knew his wife hated it, but he dropped his bag in the entryway and barely remembered to take his shoes off, such was his hurry to get to his den.

‘Den’ was a strong word, and so was office. The small room, with its’ wood panel walls his daughter Luiza had painted flowers on from floor to five feet up over the course of seven years and a shelf full of plants on one wall, a shelf of family photos on the other, was more a retreat than anything else. Despite the casual, lived-in appearance and the mini-TV where he listened to the news while reviewing paperwork at his desk, however, within it he stored his external hard drives. Home to hundreds of thousands of files and pieces of data of all kinds, cobbled together from every source he had access to and three different databases, he housed within his green-and-brown sanctuary the tools to find nearly anyone in Philadelphia.

A first name, an age, a year spent working as a peer counselor with Social Services, two dead parents, and residence in the same foster homes and group homes as Billy Batson. It wasn’t a lot of information to go off of.

He’d found people using less. Still in his work clothes, Eugeniu set things up to spend a night trawling through his collection of data. There was no telling how long it would take to locate the boy, this one-person source of Billy’s trauma, and not many legal charges would stick without a testimony. That wasn’t what this was about. If he could find him, he could keep this awful young man from having access to other potential victims. Dr. Malloy’s word was gold. Foster homes would refuse to utilize Jesse as a peer counselor if he asked them to. More than that, if he knew Jesse’s whereabouts, his picture, his patterns of behavior, he could alert Victor and Rosa Vasquez to all of it and keep the blond from ever having the opportunity to interact with Billy again.

Three hours later, his eldest son knocked on his door, worried. “ _Tata_ , you missed dinner. What are you doing?”

Eugeniu didn’t believe in lying to his children. “The same thing I did for you, back in the day, Tudor.”

His adopted son leaned against the doorframe, swallowing back a mix of emotions. “Can I help?”

“Not really. This takes time more than anything else.” He paused, glancing up from his reading. “I’d appreciate a cup of coffee, though. I have a feeling this could go until midnight.”

His son nodded and, in a move that was part snark and part wisdom, simply brought him the coffee pot along with a cup. Tudor hesitated, still reluctant to initiate physical contact with another male despite having spent four years in the safety of a loving home, before hugging his dad quickly. “Try to get to bed before four, Tata.”

Eugeniu found what he was looking for at three-thirty in the morning. When he found it, however, he couldn't move from the spot, let alone go to bed.

_Jesse Alexandru Dobrescu, age 19. Last known address as of September, 2019 – Narbeth, Pennsylvania. Last known employment – peer counselor at Annona Grace Home For Wayward Children._

He stared at the screen, only refraining from shouting ‘oh fuck’ because his children were asleep upstairs.


	12. Night Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Freddy tries to navigate his own sexuality and Billy's damage. Billy lets himself be comforted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: This chapter contains the most discussion of teen sexuality we've had so far. Nothing happens, but Freddy thinks about it, Billy dreams about it, everybody's just sort of uncomfortably stumbling their way through their own sexualities. If teenage hormonal thoughts are uncomfortable for you - and that's legit, to be fair - this isn't going to be your jam. If it helps, they don't do anything *with* each other in this.
> 
> Additionally, this chapter contains brief discussion of a really creepy grooming technique. It's not the focus, but if that's a trigger for you, bail out now. Practice safe reading.

Freddy wasn’t sure how to help Billy. 

In comics, romances were threatened by supervillains or love triangles more than anything else. Billy wasn’t still into his exes – he felt bad about how things had ended, yeah, but Freddy was pretty sure that was normal – and there weren’t any supervillains in their life right now. They weren’t so busy fighting evil they didn’t have time to hang out, or so stressed out by the fight for justice that they were snapping at each other, and nobody was trying to break them up. Billy described his past boyfriends, respectively, as a wholesome crush of the past, a ‘weird jackasses-like-jackasses thing’, and a wholesome thing ruined by jackassery. All of which was Billy talk for ‘permanently over’, and it would be silly of Freddy to worry about any of them.

But he knew something was wrong when Billy couldn’t bring himself to give Freddy the name of the fourth not-quite-boyfriend.

He worried when Billy woke up four nights in a row from nightmares, gasping for air, rubbing his neck and grimacing. Somewhere in his boyfriend’s past was someone he associated with sex in such a negative way that he treated Freddy like a potential victim. That was super weird, because Billy _never_ condescended to Freddy about his disability. He didn’t act like Freddy needed his help to do things, or act as if Freddy was different than any other guy, and he certainly didn’t let up on the snarky comments. He’d gone out of his way not to give Freddy special treatment. The way he locked up every time he got a hard on was wildly out of character for him, almost seemed to change him into a different, darker, less trusting person, and Freddy didn’t have to be an expert to see this wasn’t normal or okay.

Freddy trusted that Elio, Wyatt and Salem were decent guys who were probably as cool as Billy said they were. He didn’t want to know what the forth was like. If Billy didn’t talk in his sleep, if Freddy didn’t have the bunk under him, he wouldn’t have known the guy’s name was Jesse. It was such a normal name, uttered in the cadence of begging, and proceeded both dreams wherein Billy had to change the sheets and dreams where he had to make a beeline for the nearest trashcan to throw up in. Freddy’s heart ached hearing that, every time, especially when the other boy yanked the sheets off his bed, crying quietly and biting his lip angrily until it bled. He wanted to get up and comfort him. If he were smoother, he’d peel back his blankets and ask Billy to come sleep beside him. Freddy was a superhero; he could keep Billy safe, keep him close and stay on guard while he slept, then go find whoever hurt him and beat this Jesse guy to death. 

_That’s a little more supervillain than hero,_ he noted, lying awake after Billy turned over yet again, making the old bed creak. _No wonder Spider-Man lost his mind when Gwen Stacy died. Billy’s still alive and I want to hurt people._

“Salem,” Billy murmured up above, and Freddy grit his teeth, intensely jealous all over again.

Sex dreams about Salem were comparatively rare, but Billy didn’t cry afterwards, didn’t rush out of bed, and didn’t need to pace through the halls to calm down. That wasn’t the same thing as Billy being into the guy even now. Freddy _knew_ that. All it meant was that Salem wasn’t the same traumatizing force as Jesse was, and that was good, because Billy deserved to have _someone_ in his life who hadn’t hurt him or disappointed him. And yet, despite himself, he couldn’t help listening for his own name to crop up, just once. _Oh my God I’m an asshole_ , Freddy noted, not lacking in self-awareness. _Something really bad probably happened and I’m pretty sure I know what it is, and I gave Billy a panic attack, and I’m sitting here getting mad he’s not more into me? Holy shit I **am** supervillain material._ He buried his face in his pillow, ashamed and angry. What kind of person thought about getting laid at a time like this?

To be fair, never thinking of sex was unreasonable given he was a teenage boy sharing a room with another teenage boy who had equal if not more intense hormones. (Billy preferred to call it hormones, anyway. It probably wasn't, but that wasn't a point to be argued with one's roommate.) Freddy could sleep through a lot, but the sound of Billy breathlessly grinding into the mattress would have been distracting even if they hadn’t been dating. _Why does Billy think **he’s** the pervert when I’m just as easily revved up as he is?_ He turned over, irrationally annoyed at his sleeping boyfriend. _You’re not the only one who gets hard ons, dude, it happens._

Ten, though. Billy had said he was ten when he – everything, right, he’d said he’d done everything at that point. Somehow that was less sexy and more worrying than Freddy was pretty sure it should be. Teenage hormones couldn’t take the edge off the rawness of that fact, that brutal piece of honesty, and he tried to imagine some scenario where that wasn’t awful. Somehow he couldn’t quite manage it. All of the strange and fantastical comic book scenarios he’d overanalyzed in his time, all the magic, sci-fi and ethical quandaries, none of it was beyond him. How this wasn’t the worst case scenario eluded him. Billy didn’t talk a lot about his therapy stuff and Freddy didn’t press him on it, but he wasn’t an idiot. He could put together ‘did everything at ten’, panic attacks and therapy. He just didn’t want to face what the obvious answer was.

So he shouldn’t be mad Billy was dreaming about the non-shitty boyfriend he’d had. That was fine. That was almost normal, which was really good given they snuck out to fight crime and semi-stalked Superman in the news as hobbies these days. Normal was good. Freddy was _not_ jealous, he wasn’t-

“Freddy,” Billy breathed, and below him, his boyfriend pumped his fist victoriously. “Freddy, don’t tease him, c’mon-”

 _HOLY SHIT I’M IN HIS THREESOME DREAM?!_ He groaned, grabbing his own hair to keep from screaming. _Come on, Billy, cut me some slack!_ Freddy wasn’t always the best dressed and he’d had to be reminded to shower from time to time, and sure, he still wore Superman briefs, and yes, he sometimes slept in his clothes rather than change into pajamas, and- _You know what, maybe this is fair. I need to step up my game. Mary might have advice on this kind of thing. The being more appealing thing, not the sex dream thing. I will yeet right off the mortal coil before I ask her about that kind of thing._

The bright side, he guessed, was that he registered as safe enough for Billy to picture him in bed at all. That was progress, right? He wasn’t sure. No way was he Googling that when Darla kept grabbing his phone whenever she lost hers – one look at his search history and she’d have questions he couldn’t imagine answering. If nothing else, this was a step up from the panicked apologies Billy used to issue after they’d been making out. And… if he was honest with himself, he wasn’t opposed to the abstract concept of sex as much as Billy seemed to think he was. He was onboard with the idea of being with Billy, even outside of the confines of weird dream threesomes. (And, much as he disliked the idea of the weird dream threesome, he had to admit factoring into the dreams at all was a plus.) Intellectually, anyway, he was onboard, and they’d changed in the same room enough times that any nasty surprises about each other’s bodies were out of the way. If Billy was going to cringe away from Freddy’s leg, he’d have done it a long time ago.

But he couldn’t get over the way Billy locked up, looked guilty and freaked out. Freddy was horny, not immoral, and seeing the shame on Billy’s face made him want to go lightning zap every person involved in letting whatever happened happen. He wanted Billy not to look like he hated himself when they were touching before they got any further along in this, which he was pretty sure was less romance comic book storyline and more about being a decent human being. His perusal of more explicit Japanese comics indicated things were a lot better if everybody involved was enthusiastic about what they were doing.

Billy started sniffling up above him, muttering darkly, “What the actual fuck is wrong with me?” It was the opposite of enthusiasm, cutting dangerously close to hate, and Freddy made an executive decision on the spot that, as much as he’d botched their past talks about this stuff, he was going to try again.

“’s called hormones, Billy,” he snarked, and felt the jolt when Billy jumped shake the bed slightly. “Dude, seriously, it’s fine. You’re fine. You talk a lot in your sleep, though.”

“…what, uh, what did you hear me say?” His voice was timid in a way that broke Freddy’s heart. He’d heard that tone before, when Billy was waiting for someone to reject him yet again.

“Just, uh, just names, mostly, this time.” This conversation was incredibly awkward, and his face burned as he stared ahead into the darkness, admitting quickly, “Also I think you mentioned me and your old boyfriend-?”

Billy inhaled sharply. “I’m sorry, Freddy, I didn’t – I would never ask you to – I’m not into him – I just – I-”

“Dude, calm down! I’m not mad. Do you have _any_ idea how much strip club imagery features in my dreams, even though I’d take you over them any day? We’re even.” That was humiliating to admit, but after a pause, he heard Billy exhale and begin the process of taking even, calming breaths.

“This is my fault.” He turned over, and Freddy could tell by the shifting sounds of fabric that he was curling into a little ball, the way he often did after these sorts of dreams. “Shouldn’t have had so much to drink before bed…”

That last part was murmured so quietly, barely audible, that Freddy knew he wasn’t meant to hear it. He squinted into the darkness up above, confused. “What does what you have to drink have to do with it?”

The silence after that went on for long enough he was convinced Billy wasn’t going to answer. He heard a lot of careful breathing, swallowing, attempts to start speaking that faltered and went nowhere. Freddy’s heart raced. If he’d sent Billy into another panic attack, he wouldn’t know how to deal with that, and he hated that he always blurted things out without thinking. Clenching the blankets between his fingers, he said a quick prayer to the powers that be that he’d never believed in to please, please let his boyfriend just have one night of peace. Billy’s silence was the same as Freddy’s had been when Billy asked him what happened to his parents, had all the same weight that came before the worst details of the past, but this was different. This was recent, vivid, and tiny little details like breakfast in the morning or the park they walked by on the way to school or even drinking soda could set it off.

“If…” Billy trailed off, taking another deep breath. “If you give a kid a lot to drink, it’s easier for guys to get it up and girls to get off.”

Words failed.

Freddy thought he was going to be sick.

 _Why does he know_ \- fuck him, he knew why. He knew why, on some level, the second Billy had autocorrected to three instead of four. He knew when Billy first lost his mind over having a wet dream. Suddenly he completely understood one of the Deadly Sins: Wrath. The urge to find whoever did this and break them as slowly and viciously as possible surged through him, a desire to make someone hurt the way they’d hurt his boyfriend, and above all to keep Billy from ever being touched unkindly again. The breadth and intensity of his own anger shocked him. Freddy had never felt a kinship with violent, avenging supervillains, but in a single sentence he’d gained complete understanding into the appeal of revenge.

“That is the single most fucked up thing I’ve ever heard, and I’m including the time we fought actual demons in that. I – I don’t – holy shit, Billy, how have you not gone all Captain Fancy Cape and killed this guy?”

This time, the pause was briefer, if not less painful. “He loved me.”

“Bullshit!” He had never heard a less true statement in his entire life.

“I loved him,” Billy countered, too tired to argue. “Half of my life was spent with him, I – I didn’t have anybody else. He helped me look for my mom. So I let him – and I can’t be mad at him when I _let_ him do stuff, Freddy. I didn’t say no.”

He threw up his hands in exasperation, despite the fact Billy couldn’t see him. “You shouldn’t have had to! I mean, holy shit, Billy, some things are just not okay, ever!”

“I drank the soda, though. Whenever he asked.” He sounded _broken_ , in a way Freddy hadn’t heard anyone sound in years, and it was terrifying how unlike his normal, snarky self he sounded. “I let him get into bed with me and I…”

“Still his fault,” Freddy replied without needing a second to contemplate it. “Still wrong, still messed up, still really twisted! Like, what if I’d told you I had info on your mom and instead of having Eugene give it to you, I’d asked you to blow me or something? Who do you think is the asshole in that situation?”

“…I’m not sure.” The whisper was so shaky, voice so laden with tears, that Freddy threw back the covers, acting on instinct.

“Get down here, Scarlet Zapper. You need a hug and I’m too tired to climb up there.” He cleared his throat, awkwardly. “And, y’know. It worked in that _Pretty Cure_ fan manga Darla downloaded, so. Yeah.”

He snorted, weakly. “You read a lesbian magical girl manga? Seriously?”

“Shut up. They’re totally a thing in canon, anyway, they just don’t say it because it was 2004. Come on, dude, they basically have a daughter in the movie. Now quit stalling and let me get all shoujo on you.”

“…I, um, I. You know. That dream, uh.” He cleared his throat. “I’m gross right now and I can’t go take a shower. I don’t want you to have to deal with that and it'd be kinda hard to ignore, you know?”

“Billy,” Freddy said with what he considered to be legendary patience, “Do _you_ want to ignore that? I can if you can. It’s not a big deal to me. I’ll drop it if it is to you, but it’s fine by me. Really. You being okay is more important than a few sticky sheets.”

He took a second to mull it over. “I wanna ignore it, yeah. I wanna not talk about it and forget I pictured you and Salem like a complete freak and just _be_ with you. You’re, like, the coolest guy I know? And I don’t know why you put up with me but I never want you to stop.”

“Then get down here, Thunder Boy.”

He did, and if Freddy held him a little too tightly or if Billy sniffled once or twice, well, nobody had to know. They’d earned moments like this after all they’d been through and the demons they’d fought off, in Freddy’s opinion, and he didn’t care if anybody else got it or if they were weird. All that mattered was that Billy was okay now, relatively speaking. In the morning, Freddy would ask Eugene to look into any and all guys named Jesse in the same foster homes as Billy. He’d start putting together a plan to keep Billy safe permanently. Come dawn, he would fix everything.

Right now, he’d helped Billy get through a night, and that was enough.


	13. Guardian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jesse hurts. Freddy defends. Eugene investigates.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the lack of update yesterday! I'm back in business now, though.
> 
> Also yes Eugene's hacking here is unrealistic but it was unrealistic in the movie, too, so we're all going to have to roll with it.

_Billy watched his best friend's heart shatter in front of him.  
_

_Jesse was gasping for air like a fish, staring at nothing. His entire body had gone limp, drained of all energy, when he heard the news, and he sat there on the floor, unseeing, disbelieving. He hadn’t expected his parents to be dead, not after all the things they’d endured and come out of, not after how they’d taught him to survive anything. This wasn’t supposed to be happening. Billy tried to tug him to his feet, but the older boy was immobile, shock fighting with grief for dominance. He couldn’t be snapped out of this. What was Billy supposed to say, in this moment? All the light had gone out of Jesse’s eyes, turning the silver a dull, foggy grey His gaze was unfocused as he took in more, more, more air, trying to catch his breath._

_Helpless, Billy knelt by his side, pulling him into a hug. There were no words for this. Nothing was going to make this right, he knew, not a damn thing, yet he couldn’t keep himself from trying anyway. “Jay, you’ve still got me. Okay? I’m right here. You’re okay. You’ll be okay.”_

_“I don’t wanna be alive,” he said, voice trembling, voice shaking as he ran one hand through his hair, fist gripping his scalp, fingers digging in as he seemed to visibly fall apart. “I don’t – I don’t – I can’t do this, I can’t, I should just kill myself-”_

_“No!” he snapped, grabbing his hands. “You even try it and I’ll tell the social worker, I’ll call 911, I won’t – I won’t let you die, okay? I love you!”_

_Grey eyes slowly coming back to life, he repeated as if he hadn’t heard him right, “You… love me?”_

_Billy had never said that to someone before, but he was in too deep to back out now. He stared into Jesse’s eyes and nodded, taking a deep breath. “Yeah, I do. So you’re not allowed to die, Dobrescu. You’re_ not _.”_

_Sluggishly, he nodded, and let Billy help him to his feet. He was a little unsteady, still, a little dazed, so Billy led the way back towards the bus depot and then, eventually, the house, where hopefully family movie night and dinner might breathe some will to live back into his friend. The older boy let himself be guided through the city, oblivious to the way passersby gave them strange looks. It was the most unnerving thing Billy had seen thus far in his life. Somehow the silence was worse than anything he’d ever heard, and yet he didn’t have words to try to fill the void. He tried hard not to think about the possibility that his own mother was dead somewhere. He tried not to think about how scary it was that Jesse immediately went to suicide as a coping mechanism, tried not think about how easy it would be not to be there when Jesse needed him and end up completely. He tried not to think at all._

_Maybe if he_ had _been thinking, maybe he wouldn’t have let Jesse pull him into his bedroom when they got home while everyone else was busy watching a movie._

 

* * *

 

 

Freddy hunched over Eugene at the computer, glancing at the door nervously.

In theory, Eugene’s hacking skills were good enough that there weren’t major risks. In reality, their mom would be incredibly disappointed in them and Victor would revoke computer privileges for both of them for a month. That Freddy was willing to ask Eugene for this favor anyway told Eugene this was a big deal, and he tried not to think about what that meant. A lot of foster kids had horror stories. He and Freddy were lucky, but Billy had been in a lot of foster homes, and eventually good luck ran out. Focusing on his work and not on the possible what-ifs was hard. Eugene had already had to force himself not to dig into Billy’s past beyond getting ahold of his parents’ info, knowing he wasn’t going to like what he found if he went looking too deep. He’d already traumatized himself digging into Darla’s past when she confessed to him that she didn’t remember how her parents died; he didn’t go diving into the murky waters of the past much after that unless he was asked to.

Finding a single boy named Jesse in the sea of kids in foster homes in Philadelphia was week-long endeavor for somebody with Eugene’s limited experience and resources. As spring finally clawed its’ way back into Philadelphia, one muddy street and melted snow pile at a time, Eugene sat at his computer with his customary drinks of choice – orange Fanta, sometimes classic Monster Energy – and developed a minor headache. Billy had been through _so many_ foster care homes that the information he found was mammoth and labyrinthine. He’d ducked out of some mere days into them. If he wanted to, he could probably slip authorities entirely, but he’d never tried. His only goal had been to get to his mother, or else the eager paper trail that did exist wouldn’t have at all. The same anxious feeling that had bloomed in Eugene’s chest when he looked into Billy’s mom manifested every time he sat down at the computer.

“Got it,” he announced, opening up a separate document where he’d compiled all his leads on Jesse. “This kid was in a bunch of the same foster homes as Billy. He kept getting thrown out for fighting with other kids or running away with Billy to look for his parents, but they were in the same counties most of the time, so they stayed in communication for years."

Freddy leaned forward, eager for answers and visibly dreading them. “Uh-huh. What else? Like, what’s in his permanent record?”

“Um… his mom had an affair, and his dad wasn’t his real dad. She tried to drown him at a duck pond when he was seven so his dad would take her back. It sort of worked? He got put in protective custody and they didn’t seek legal guardianship, and this one social worker’s report I found says he thought the Social Services people were lying. Like, he thinks he fell in and his parents tried to find him but the government took him away from them. A lot of the times he went missing with Billy, he was looking for them. And a lot of the fights he got into were about his parents, too. He…” Eugene rubbed at the skin under his eyes, wincing. “He stole stuff and got into fights and ran around trying to find his parents because he never gave up on them. He loved them and they didn’t care.”

“Just like Billy,” he murmured, though voicing the thought was unpleasant. _That doesn’t excuse any of what he did, but… that’s really messed up anyway._ “I guess I never thought we were lucky that our parents _actually_ lost custody of us instead of giving us up.” Awkwardly, he cleared his throat and added, “How, um, how’s your mom…?”

“She’s stable,” Eugene replied a little too quickly, trying not to think about the psychiatric hospital or the crushing reality that ‘stable’ was not good enough to get her released. “Anyway, Jesse’s still around, kind of. He’s up in Narberth working as a peer counselor at a foster home. In the last two years he really pulled his act together and started acting a lot better, so he’s qualified, more or less. Freddy?”

“Yeah?”

“What did he do to Billy?” he asked, quietly, not wanting anyone to overhear but needing the answer. “I know he had to have done something for you to ask me, and I know Billy’s in therapy. What happened?”

Freddy shook his head, looking down guiltily. “I promised him I wouldn’t say, and, you know, after all the stuff he’s had gone wrong, I think he needs people to keep their promises to him now.”

“Is he going to be okay?” That was the more important question, honestly. “Some days he seems really down and… I just want him to be okay. He’s a really good big brother now that he’s stopped being all distant. We’re dominating in Pokemon UltraSun and he’s been helping me with horror games and it’s like, he’s finally having fun. And I want him to keep having fun, so this sort of thing is really creepy.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “It is. But I think he’s going to be okay. He’s got Dr. Malloy, and our parents, and us. And we’re all trying really hard, so I think it’s going to be alright. I just think we need to keep Jesse away from Billy, ‘cause he’s been having nightmares about him and I’m pretty sure he’s bad news even if his file says he’s a good guy now. So just stalk this guy until we figure out a way to talk to Victor and Rosa about it, and then they’ll handle it, and it’ll be okay.”

Eugene wasn’t sure if stalking was the most moral solution to this, but they didn’t have a lot of options. Billy would freak out if they went to their parents without telling him what they’d found out. He’d freak out if they told him what they’d found out, probably. He was trying really hard to be a part of the family and live in the present. Billy had sat with Darla and helped her make jewelry, played around with a music making program Pedro was into and made some truly awful amateur attempts at chiptunes, and had even relented and let Shay and Mary take him shopping for new clothes now that he was getting too tall for some of his old ones. He hadn’t asked Eugene about his mom. He’d been less standoffish at dinner with every passing night. Eugene remembered when he himself had first arrived here, how he’d been absorbed in his games to the point of not talking, preoccupied with both his mom and a resistance to change. Billy wasn’t super different in some ways. This might make him go back to being old, withdrawn, kind of mean Billy.

Ultimately, he’d have to leave this to his parents and Freddy, who he was pretty sure was into Billy. He wasn’t going to say anything about that – he hated that kind of talk, and romance was his least favorite part of any video game – but he was glad they had each other. Billy didn’t condescend to Freddy about being disabled and Freddy didn’t mind Billy being snarky and sometimes withdrawn. They were good at talking to each other. Freddy would tell Billy and they’d work it out and handle it, while Eugene kept an eye out for the guy who’d given Billy nightmares.

“Freddy!” Billy called from the front door, sounding torn between laughter and genuine annoyance. “Come rescue me from shopping hell! This sucks, dude!”

Snickering, Freddy left, albeit not without shooting Eugene a meaningful look. “I told you they were going to get maternal on you, man! It’s like that Spider-Man comic with the sentient tsum tsum.”

“I am _not_ a tsum tsum, you dick!”

Sounds of laughter and banter filled the house. Eugene took a moment to drink it in; Shay’s smooth, fast voice contrasted with Mary’s slightly higher, fonder tone, while Billy sounded happier than he had since he arrived and Freddy’s very tone screamed ‘egging everyone on’. This was nice, in a way that he hadn’t really had when he was living with his mom. This, in his pretty uninformed opinion, was what a family was probably supposed to be like. Eugene couldn’t imagine a better group of dorks to live with than these losers, or, as Darla called them, ‘unorthodoxly cool’ people. He still remembered the silence of his house back when he lived with his mom. The quiet was deafening. Sometimes, nights still made him uneasy, but he knew his mother had never intended to hurt him. She was reclusive, depressed and having a hard time. Whatever Billy and Jesse’s situation had, Jesse had really hurt him, and even if his parents had done bad things and died, that really didn’t justify whatever he’d done to Billy. The panic, the nightmares, all of it was too much to be okay no matter how Eugene tried to rationalize it.

He wanted to help. He’d wanted to help Billy ever since that first dinner when Billy looked defeated and isolated at a table full of happy, loving people. Eugene hated that, as one of the younger members of the household, there was only so much he could do. To make matters worse, he’d had the flu last week and hadn’t been able to go on patrol as a superhero, which _sucked_. Good brothers should be there for each other. Swallowing nervously, he tried to force away the chest-twisting pre-panic feeling as he began to pick through the files on the other kids at the group home where Jesse worked. If he could find proof Jesse was hurting somebody else, or proof he was a really bad influence on other kids, then he could help maybe call the police or get Jesse fired or something, anything, to make sure that jerk never messed with his brother ever again.

 _Huh,_ he thought, squinting at the screen behind his glasses. _He brought back a girl who ran away twice. That sounds nice, but now she’s acting out a lot more and getting in trouble? That’s… not a coincidence. I bet if I could talk to her, she’d help a lot with figuring out what happened and how to get Jesse fired._

He paused, then pulled up a Google Map of Philadelphia. Narberth was too far away to walk, or take a subway to. Mary wouldn’t drive him. She’d want to give this more time. But Billy needed him now.

And it wouldn’t be that long of a flight.


	14. Sans Billy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eugene seeks. A new player is introduced. Mary deals with aftershocks. Shay advises.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for an incest mention and brief mention of suicidal ideation.
> 
> The next three chapters are pure Billy and Freddy, so here's a brief interlude with other characters before we get into that. Please heed the tags, which is a sentence I find myself typing a lot as I go deeper into this.
> 
> Please try not to judge Mary too harshly, here.

Lina sat on the roof of Annona Grace Home For Wayward Children, staring at the sky. 

The clouds were silver and grey, bright with sunlight behind them, hiding in plain sight. She knew the feeling. Somehow the clouds reminded her of Jesse’s eyes up close, the way that light could turn them silver and shadow could throw them into gray. Her eyes were black as pitch, an inky color that made it impossible to tell where the pupils started and irises began, and they were steady in a way no one else’s was. No one could intimidate her. Lina could stare down the worst of them, no matter their threats or insults; she was made of stone, from her heart to her mind to her nerves, and nothing could scare her.

Almost nothing.

Her panties were still in the bedroom, but she was loathe to go retrieve them. Under her long trench coat, her legs were bare save for Jesse’s stolen boots, which were far too big for her feet. If she jumped from here, would she die? It would destroy Jesse emotionally, and he didn’t deserve that, but they were running out of leads and hope, and she was so, so tired. She didn’t want to die, exactly, she just didn’t want to feel so hollowed out and broken down. If she waited ten minutes, would she remember the games he bought her, the dresses he stole for her, the way he took her to the park and out at night, granting her freedom from this overcrowded place? The cold stabbed into her legs, especially into the bite marks her boyfriend had placed on her thighs, yet she couldn’t find it in herself to move even when the snow came down, coating the world in white. They had been so close to getting her home. _She_ had been so close. How long was she supposed to keep trying, keep going, when nothing was going right?

Another girl might have cried. Lina never cried these days. She'd cried so much at first that she'd run out of them. Besides, tears were worthless, for people like her, and might draw suspicion onto her if she was spotted. Lina didn’t want to do anything that would draw attention onto Jesse, even inadvertently. The pain of the icy winds sobbed for her, howling out the screams she couldn’t bring herself to utter as she went over her options with all the intensity an eleven year old could manage. Her emptiness was a familiar place within her. Nothing mattered except in fleeting flashes of moments that blurred by before she could savor them. Jesse granted her those moments. He was kind and loving, spoiled her with small things that gave her reasons to keep going, including the black peacoat that she was wearing. Before him, she’d been going from foster home to foster home with only four changes of clothing and no winter gear. Her sweet diamond-haired prince, pale and gentlemanly, was always there to catch her when she fell, and instantly she felt guilty for even thinking about jumping when she remembered him. He had given her all her best moments since her father died.

He inflicted others upon her that were less pleasant, but they were still loving, right? This was what love was, dealing with bad moments together and helping each other. She helped him at night. He was going to help her find her way back to Alaska, where her aunts and uncles lived, where she had a home in a town at the end of the world filled with roaring fireplaces, soft coats and thick blankets that would weigh her down into solid sleep, into herself. Once she was there she would be able to get on his nerves less once they were further apart, and they would figure out everything. He’d marry her when she was older; a white wedding atop the world at dusk when the world was sparkling and alive, with her aunt and uncle and cousins all in attendance, and not a single kid that picked on within hundreds of miles. Lina tilted her head towards the sky to gaze at the horizon. Beyond the smaller suburb buildings of Narberth lay Philadelphia, where people richer than everyone in this town combined lived, where one day she would go and steal something valuable enough to pawn for the money to get her to Alaska. She didn’t know how to steal, not really, but Jesse had promised to teach her.

A promise was a flimsy reason to keep living, but it _was_ a reason. She looked out at Narberth, at this place she was trapped in on the opposite side of the world from her real home, and begrudgingly got to her feet to talk to her one and only hope of escape. _What’s that line from that one Satillo song – ‘I need new heroes’? Big mood._

That was when a blur of a figure landed from the sky and yelled, “Shazam!”, thunder and lightning rippling through the snow to reveal a dorky Asian kid in glasses.

_…beggars can't be choosers, I suppose.  
_

 

* * *

 

 

Mary groaned, leaning her head against the window of Shay’s ridiculously old, meticulously restored car.

“Shay, can we _please_ not listen to political talk radio? Please? This is supposed to be a date.” She knew it was a podcast, not a radio show, but it was frankly exhausting either way and she didn’t care about the difference. “Well, shopping _and_ a date, kind of. Should we count this sort of thing?”

Shay turned off the podcast with a thoughtful hum. “I tell people we’ve been dating for nine months because nine months, two days ago, you sat with me at lunch. So we could absolutely count shopping for your brother’s birthday presents as a date.”

“Presents? Plural? When did you make that decision?” She raised an eyebrow, playful and not remotely objecting.

“When you told me how many homes he’s been through. That kid needs a proper birthday – cake, ice cream, presents, socks, the works.”

“Socks, Shay?”

“It’s the decoy present to make him think we got him boring stuff, before we spring the good gifts on him,” she explained sagely, expertly maneuvering through the choked traffic of Philly in the evening. “You’d be amazed how often the decoy socks make all other gifts look amazing, especially the younger you are. Trust in the socks.”

Mary laughed, both at how seriously Shay could say that kind of absurd sentence with a straight face and at the mental image. There was something charming in how Shay said everything with utmost confidence, the way she assumed she knew what she was talking about and never hesitated to either ask for help or volunteer it. The first time Mary had met her, a teacher had introduced Shay as a tutor for her, and Mary had been embarrassed to admit she couldn’t afford it. Shay had told her it didn’t matter; tutoring killed time and that meant less time to binge podcasts. Given she still went through three hours of it a day, Mary was afraid to know how much she’d been bingeing before. Still, the confidence and shamelessness with which she declared herself a hopeless nerd who binged on garbage was enough to make Mary grin right from the get-go.

While their relationship was built on a mixture of spending time together and spoiling one another, Mary hadn’t truly been sold on Shay until she saw Shay spoil literally everyone else. She would give anything on her to anyone, for any reason. She worried about Mary’s foster siblings and wanted them to be happy. When Shay pulled up to Darla’s last birthday laden down with all her old fancy dresses from childhood, Mary had truly fallen in love. She could see herself forming a family with this confidence, caring, nerdy girl, picture them with a daughter of their own to spoil and talk to and dote on. The thought still scared her in intensity. In the face of college, it was almost laughably pathetic.

Tonight, though, they weren’t going to think about that. They were going to buy Billy things, get Starbucks, listen to Shay’s obnoxious political podcasts, and possibly stop for Vietnamese food downtown. A perfectly serene night, one they’d had dozens of times before, just now with the additional knowledge that Billy hadn’t had anything like this before to motivate them to really work at the shopping part of things. Buying for boys was hard, especially one as reserved as Billy, who would never ask for anything directly. Fortunately, Shay never backed away from a challenge. She would figure something out by fishing through Mary’s memory for details until they stumbled upon a concept they could use.

“Billy could use new shoes,” Mary noted, idly reaching over to rest her hand on Shay’s on the console between the seats. “He’ll never ask, and he didn’t when we got him new clothes, but you can tell he’s worn those things into the ground. I guess he did a lot of walking before.”

“Running away will kill shoes,” her girlfriend replied, a little too knowingly, and Mary gave her a puzzled look. “I ran away for a week when I was nine. It’s a long story, but basically: living in the woods is a lot more boring than you’d think, and no shoes survive that much constant wear.”

Mary smiled. “Did you try to find the Jersey Devil?”

Shay’s Jersey accent was never more prominent than when she was embarrassed, rare as that was. “I can neither confirm nor deny that. Oh look, we’re here.”

Laughing, Mary leaned over to peck her on the cheek before they got out. Looping an arm through the taller girl’s, they strolled into the first of a series of stores where Shay would no doubt overanalyze every product, seeking out something that could make Billy happy. Mary thought it was fairly obvious that after the childhood he’d had, anything would work. She wasn’t going to stop her, though. If anyone could use some spoiling – and hadn’t already had some courtesy of Shay’s maternal instincts – it was Billy. Billy was seeing Dr. Malloy, which could only mean the past foster homes hadn’t been as good as they’d thought, and he had moments where he froze up that really worried her. She’d started driving them to school via a different route, to avoid the park that made him lock up. It was hard to gauge what other actions to take. That was the appeal of shopping, really; she could enlist someone else’s help in creating happy memories for her brother and see some tangible results after a night of working at it.

Still, it hurt her heart that Billy’s mom had rejected him. He wasn’t talking about it, at least not to her, but he’d worked hard to find her, clinging to the happy memories he had of her for years. Those were some of his only happy memories. Now, all of them were tainted by the rejection, the dismissal, and the knowledge she’d never loved him the way he loved her.

“Mary?” Shay asked, placing a hand on her shoulder to try to snap her out of it. “You’re zoning out on me, Pumpkin Pop.”

Mary’s nose crinkled. “Don’t call me that.” 

“Gummy Worm?”

“No.”

“Peanut Brittle?”

“ _No_.”

“Blueberry Bae?”

“Scheherazade Annalise Holt, I _will_ take your car keys and leave you here.” She shot her an unamused look, and Shay just raised an eyebrow.

“Pumpkin Pop, you’re crying.” Her voice was the softest it had been in a while, and Mary blinked, surprised, as her girlfriend leaned over to wipe at her eyes with a tissue from her coat pocket. “And if you wanna talk, we’ll talk, but otherwise, it’s my job to cheer you up. Okay?”

Wordlessly, Mary took her hand and led her out of the store so she could pull herself together in semi-private, and wordlessly, Shay followed, rubbing her thumb over Mary’s fingers in well practiced motions. They had done this before. Every time Mary thought she’d put enough earth onto the coffin of her past to completely bury it, something made it resurface. It would be stupid to be mad at Billy for that, and she wasn’t, because it wasn’t him. What was wrong went deeper than that, and she let the cold air smack some sense back into her. Unlike Billy, she’d had years to process life until she’d managed to learn how to keep things from ripping her apart inside.

That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.

She leaned against the wall, foot tapping, arms crossed, pushing the tears away so she wouldn’t worry Shay, who was never fooled by that but would pretend to be to keep the peace. “My dad-” Mary started, then faltered, groaning in a mix of irritation and leftover anxiety that rose up inside her from years and years ago. “He never loved me. I did everything for him and he never – and Billy’s mom just _threw him away_ , Shay. You have no idea how much work he put into finding her, it’s crazy, and he was working at it for years and he was just trying to keep the family together and…”

“And so were you?” Shay supplied, which was the exact combination of words necessary to make Mary start crying again, not because it was cruel but because it was true.

“When Billy got entered into the foster care system, his mom would’ve had to have signed away her custody rights without telling him, just like…”

Shay tugged her into a hug, not giving a damn that they were in public, wrapping her long arms around Mary’s waist and leaning back to let her rest her head against her shoulder. Mary curled into her, letting herself be held. It had taken a long, long time to get Mary to that point. She was healthy, whole, she’d healed from her past and moved forward, and as such she absolutely loathed moments where she wasn’t as over it as she wanted to be. She wanted to be okay. She had put in a lot of work to be as okay as she was, as normal, as grounded in reality and the present as she could be. That the specter of the past could rise up abruptly in the middle of something as mundane as shopping was unsettling. Mary didn’t want to remember her father. She had another dad now, a mom, too, a bundle of siblings and a girlfriend who was applying to colleges that were far from her dream university just to be able to attend school near her. Eight years had passed since she last saw her father. Everything should have been too far in the past to hurt anymore, except…

“Scheherazade,” Mary murmured into her girlfriend’s shoulder, and it was _always_ serious when she broke out her girlfriend’s full name, “I think somebody hurt Billy the way my dad hurt me. I – it’s so many little things – it all sounds stupid separately but when you put it together-”

“I believe you,” Shay said firmly, rubbing her back. “I do. The question is, what do you want to do about it?”

She shut her eyes, taking a deep breath. “I don’t know. I want to tell him how I got through it, so he knows it’ll be okay, but I – I can’t – when I think about-”

“Shh, shh. _Tezor_. Listen to me. Breathe with me.” She waited a minute, nearly twenty seconds longer than she thought Mary needed, before she continued. “I won’t tell you what to do. I’ve never been through what you have. But believe me when I say this: you don’t have to rip yourself apart for Billy to be able to help him. He was so, so happy when we took him shopping. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone make that many sarcastic remarks in my life, but he was happy, and you helped him realize he’s going to stay and not get put in another family by making plans for the future with him. _You_ did that. And you did that without telling him about what happened to you. You can help without hurting yourself more. You already have.”

“…I just want him to be okay.” She sniffled, and Shay felt a tear leak onto her neck, a liquid manifestation of phantom pain.

“He will be. I know, because you are, and because you’re there for him. That’s all he needs.”

Mary nodded with a confidence she didn’t feel, hoping she was right.


	15. Stolen Moments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Malloy reasons. Freddy loves. Billy loves/loved.

Billy had only dated someone who was disabled once before. 

Her name was Edie, and she was the brief intermission inbetween the violence Jesse inflicted on Wyatt and the complicated mixed bag that was Salem. Her chronic fatigue made her an easy target for bullying, especially combined with her insomnia making the problem worse. Billy tried not to care. That trying lasted all of a day; much like with Freddy, all he could think is _this isn’t fair_ and that turned into anger and then he was punching somebody. Maybe that wasn’t the healthiest way to start a romance, but it worked with both Edie and Freddy in equal measures. Both times, it was unintentional. Each time, it was hard to navigate the topic of sex. Edie was simply so exhausted so much of the time that Billy didn’t feel right making a move towards that with her. It was good, too, to have something wholesome where they watched Disney movies together, hung out and debated whatever topic came to mind.

Ultimately, though, it left him clueless on how to help Freddy when he was having a bad day. He knew how to help Edie – a bed and a willingness to hang out basically papered over the worst of it. Freddy’s disability was completely different, and Billy knew from botching things with Edie more than once that sometimes asking questions could come across as massively insensitive. And unlike Edie, whose parents were fighting for custody of her and who thus exited Billy’s life within three months, Freddy was a permanent fixture in his world now. The fact that _anything_ was a permanent fixture in his life still blew his mind a little. He really, truly didn’t want to screw any of this up.

This was how he found himself trying to come up with a non-weird, semi-smooth way of explaining to Dr. Malloy that firstly, he was dating Freddy, and secondly, he was still having an uncomfortable level of sex-related thoughts. Rather than delve into that first part, he decided to go over the sex thing. If he could stop thinking about sex, then he wouldn’t be at risk of messing things up. It was a foolproof plan.

“Billy, not thinking about _anything_ isn’t something you can force,” Malloy informed him point-blank. “My goal here is to help you think about things in a healthier, more rational and positive way, not to encourage avoidant behaviors. That will just lead to more problems for you, and frankly, I think you’ve been through enough without my adding onto it.”

He stared at his therapist, torn between annoyance and being impressed with how complete that takedown of his (formerly) foolproof plan was. “Thank you and also, you suck, dude.”

“So I’ve been told,” he nodded, accepting that duality as part of the job. “I take it this means your dreams are continuing to bother you?" 

“Yeah.” Billy groaned, burying his face in his hands. “And it sucks and I hate it. I feel gross. What kind of guy has weird dreams about his best friend?”

“Many kinds of guy, actually, the vast majority of which are perfectly fine people who are in no way ‘gross’,” Malloy said casually. Answering rhetorical questions was a running theme with him. “At your age, it’s not a ‘weird’ or ‘gross’ thing at all – statistically, it’s fairly average. It’s not typically _pleasant_ , but it’s not gross.”

“I just – I dunno, I guess I wonder sometimes if I’m really in love with my friend or if I’m just hormonal. ‘Cause he deserves way better than that, you know? Also, I was kind of a dick to him before, and I think I made up for it but I still feel bad.” He rubbed his temples, feeling a migraine starting. “Man, it’s not nearly this complicated in those romcoms Mary watches.”

“Ah. That makes an unfortunate amount of sense; a lot of people who have gone through what you have find themselves second-guessing their own romantic intent. But the fact that you’re concerned about him, that you feel he deserves better, and that you’re willing to talk to me about it? Billy, all of those point to some very genuine care on your part. I won’t say if it’s love because I don’t think there’s a diagnostic criteria for that, but you’re not merely trying to get sexual gratification out of it. Everything you’ve told me about your past relationships indicates that you conflate sex with showing affection, not that affection is absent from any of your relationships.”

Billy stared at him, completely at a loss on how to feel. “I… I think I should be comforted by that but I still feel like I’m going to completely fuck this up. Is _that_ statistically average?”

“It is when it matters,” Malloy said softly, like he was speaking from personal experience. “When someone doesn’t matter to you, you don’t have to be afraid. That you _are_ means you’re not the gross, heartless person you keep trying to convince me and convince yourself you are.”

“I feel like a shit person, dude. I literally thought about whether or not I could get it on with him since he’s disabled. That’s pretty douchey.”

“Is it? You contemplated whether or not you would hurt him in an effort to avoid that outcome. You feel that’s douchey?”

“…well, shit,” Billy muttered, feeling some degree of self-hatred lift. “You’ve got a point. Damn, you’re good at this. Um, this whole thing still sucks, though. The doubt and all that bullshit, not Freddy, he’s great-”

He froze, realizing he’d just dropped Freddy’s name into this conversation. Billy swallowed nervously, waiting for Dr. Malloy to point out all the reasons that was weird: Freddy was technically his foster brother, Freddy was a lot more normal in a lot of ways, they shared a room. There were a lot of reasons this was a bad idea or at least a strange one. Dr. Malloy’s expression, however, was more reserved than Billy was used to, and he couldn’t read the subtle shift of moods on his face.

To his credit, Malloy simply blinked twice and seemed to shake it off. “Well, that explains some of the anxiety you’re experiencing. Living with your boyfriend is going to make this topic come up regularly, obviously, not even taking into account your uncertainties regarding your foster parents.”

“You, um, you don’t think this is… I dunno, kind of strange? Or bad? Or something?”

“I won’t lie to you: you’re going to have to tell your foster parents sooner rather than later to avoid a very uncomfortable level of drama when they find out – and it is a matter of when, not if – and you should be aware that if you break up with Freddy, it will be one of the most awkward and possibly panic attack inducing experiences of your life. But those risks are still present in other relationships, albeit less so, and discouraging you from who you want to date isn’t my job. Nor would it help you emotionally. I _will_ say that given the sheer volume of trauma you have connected to sex, you should probably wait awhile before you make any moves towards making the relationship more physical. People can and do retraumatize themselves, and it makes my job a lot harder.”

Billy nodded, feeling his stomach churn at the thought of telling Rosa and Victor, but unable to refute any of it. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s – that makes sense. All of it.”

That didn’t make it any easier.

 

* * *

_Jesse had a longstanding habit of blasting music too loud, but in the confined space of a car it went from bearable to mildly obnoxious._

_Still, Billy couldn’t bring himself to be too irritated, not with Jesse belting out all the lyrics to AFI’s Beautiful Thieves. He found he preferred Jesse’s voice to the singer’s, loved the deeper pitch and the smooth way he harmonized with the chorus. When the blond boy got around music, or at least the music he liked, he was a radically different person, all sincerity, volume and smiles. It was as if the notes forced joy out of him, raised some happier, younger version of Jesse from the dead and breathed life into him. With the windows down to try to mitigate the sweltering Philadelphia summer, they seemed to leave the normal confides of reality and move into some other, better world, one made of whistling wind, dying twilight skies and music loud enough to drive the sorrow out of their heads. The car vibrated with the music. Billy laid his head against the seat to let the thrumming of the bass pass into his head, watching with open fondness as Jesse made a complete fool out of himself bopping his head to the rhythm._

_This was Jesse on an upswing, Jesse on a forty-hour stretch of being awake, Jesse without the clouds hanging over his head. This was the opposite of the broken shell who’d laid in bed for three days after he found out his parents were dead; this was him at his most absurd and consequently his best as a boyfriend. They knew their foster parents would never report the car as stolen when that could land Jesse in jail, so somehow, armed with only that talking point, Jesse had convinced him to grab the keys and all the money out of their foster sister’s piggy bank. Half an hour later, they were blasting down the road of some random Philadelphia suburb, loaded up on junk food and adrenaline. The sheer thrill of what they’d done kept them from processing how bad the consequences were obviously going to be._

_Their last foster families had missed both their birthdays, giving them nothing, not even a card, to remember those days by. High on his own confidence in his ability to lie to the cops, the newly sixteen Jesse, still sans a driver’s license, breezed right by all common sense in his proposal, and Billy, sick of being confined, had jumped at the opportunity to go along with him. It was something to do to distract him from the deep pain of another dead end in the search for his mom. And it was hard, with Jesse hitting every note perfectly with that flawless, almost awe-inducing talent of his, with the wind destroying their hair and three dinner’s worth of fast food in their stomachs, to feel any kind of pain at all. They were alive, they were free, and when Jesse grabbed him by the shirt at a stoplight to kiss him like it was his last chance to do it, they were going to be okay. Sure, they’d had problems, and yes, Jesse had hurt him, but he loved him, he loved him enough to do these crazy, impossible things for him, with him, and Billy was in love._

_Whatever else he would doubt, later, about everything that happened, he never doubted his love for Jesse, and only rarely doubted Jesse’s love for him._

 

* * *

 

If it had been up to Freddy, he would have told Victor and Rosa about them from day one.

Part of what superhero comics had taught him, however, was that not listening to someone you were dating was what led to break ups. That was why Tony Stark and Pepper Potts broke up twice, and Freddy didn’t have a dope ass suit of armor to impress Billy with or money to buy him sweet gifts. With that in mind, even if he didn’t understand _why_ Billy was so sure he’d be ejected from the house if their foster parents knew about them, he kept quiet. Billy had been through a lot lately. They could deal with the whole coming out thing when he was ready, when the pain from being rejected by his mom had faded and he wasn’t still getting used to the house. Or at least, that was what Freddy had thought at first. Three months in, it was clear there was a lot more damage he needed to work through, and Freddy was a lot more concerned about making sure Billy was okay than he was making sure they could hold hands in public.

That said, there weren’t a lot of superhero comics about gay heroes, or lesbian ones, or bisexual ones, or trans ones, and Freddy had always prided himself on his library of comic books. The whole family, sans Mary, partook in them from time to time. He was like a storyteller from fairytales, peddling all the best tales of epic badassery and masked heroics. Freddy had gone out of his way to get a racially diverse pool of titles for his siblings to peruse, but had overlooked non-straight, non-cis heroes (well, he’d argue that all robots were trans because they started out agender and then found a gender identity, but when he argued that people’s eyes tended to glaze over out of sheer disinterest). If he wanted all of his siblings to feel comfortable being them, not just Billy, he needed to come up with better reading material.

 _Okay, Marvel can claim Black Widow is straight all they want but that Cuba scene? Yeah, that’s definitely subtext._ He made a note in his notebook, under a column he’d drawn up. There were four columns, ‘canon rainbow’, ‘mild rainbow’, ‘rainbow flavored’, and ‘sexy rainbow’. The entirety of the _Cybersix_ comics went right into the sexy rainbow column, which was his personal designation that Darla should never see it. On the one hand, it had a canon nonbinary genderfluid crime fighter, yes, but on the other hand, sex scenes. Nope. Victor and Rosa would kill him and Mary would kill him and he would have to have the most awkward conversations ever with Darla and- yes, so. The sexy rainbow category, redefined as ‘could this be explained to Darla’, grew at a rapid pace, while the second-fastest growing was rainbow flavored, his category for subtext that might not have even been intentional but was definitely there. _Oh my God, Tony Stark and Captain America get married in universes where Tony’s a girl? Wow, that’s like… Darla’s Pretty Cure fanfic level of subtlety._ What category did that even go in?

It was this crucial question he was pondering over when Billy walked in, threw his backpack down, and glared at the bunk beds. “I can’t even throw myself on the bed to sulk. Today _sucks_.”

“You can throw yourself on my bed,” Freddy said, then turned red and started sputtering when it hit him just what that sounded like. “I mean – I’m not saying – unless you want to, then I am – unless you’re not, then I’m not-”

“Dude, calm down,” Billy snorted, shaking his head in amusement. “I’m not gonna break up with you over one accidental come-on. You’re good.” He paused, however, chewing his lip thoughtfully, then glanced out into the hall and carefully shut and locked the door. Some conversations didn’t need to be overheard. “If, uh, if it’s not super creepy to ask – which it might be, I honestly don’t know – is, um. Is that kind of thing something you still want to do, with me, given my epic freakouts?”

“Oh my _God_ ,” his horrified boyfriend replied, loudly and immediately, “Of course I do! What kind of jackass bails out on somebody over panic attacks? That’s so shitty supervillains don’t do it, Billy. I’m not a villain!”

Billy held up his hands, shushing him. “Keep it down! And I wasn’t saying you _were_ that kind of douchebag, I was – I wanted to make sure you were still into it? Like…” He tried to collect his thoughts, “I don’t want to be pushy? And I don’t want to act like I’m not into you, either, because I am, and… we need a book.”

“I got a book!” Freddy grinned, triumphant, and gestured with his head to his backpack. “I got a bundle from the library. I dunno which one is the best, but it’s a start, right?”

“You actually got a book. This is why I love you, Freddy.” He leaned over and pecked Freddy on the cheek where he sat at the desk, purely to get Freddy to groan and swat at him.

“C’mon, man, we’re heroes – we can’t get cheesy like that, that’s, like, taunting fate to send us a relationship-focused supervillain!”

“And you being embarrassed about squeaking has _nothing_ to do with it.” Billy grinned, and Freddy was almost distracted from the argument entirely by how happy he was that he could get that kind of expression out of him semi-regularly these days.

But, his honor was at stake. “I do not _squeak_ , Batson!”

“Uh, yeah? You do. You squeak when Darla starts a group hug, when you get kissed on the cheek or the head, and you sleep-squeak.”

“No I- wait, I _what_?”

Billy nodded, folding his arms. “You make little squeaking sounds in your sleep sometimes when you turn over. It’s adorable and not to be dramatic, but I would die for you, dude.”

Freddy groaned, but he was smiling, and Billy grinned back. These little moments they’d managed to find inbetween superhero patrols, therapy and homework were everything to Freddy. He wouldn’t know how to explain it properly to someone if he tried; something was simply _perfect_ about hanging out with Billy in ways that nothing else was. They were, as far as Freddy was concerned, awesome at romance. They were happy together, thus they were the best, no matter how little they knew about normal dates or how to be romantic. They didn’t need to know that stuff. They had each other. Billy put a hand on the desk to steady himself and leaned down to catch a still grinning Freddy in a kiss, sending a spike of warmth through him, a warm, loved feeling that he wanted to hold onto forever. Compared to Billy, Freddy was kind of terrible at kissing, all enthusiasm and zero finesse or experience, but Billy kissed him back without even a smirk or a snarky remark. He didn’t want someone who actually knew what they doing. He wanted Freddy. He lived with Freddy’s weirdness and obsession with fiction and sleep-squeaking and he still wanted him, when he could’ve had anybody else.

And in spite of all their less than perfect moments lately, every time they had a moment like this, Freddy knew he wanted Billy, too, for as long as Billy would put up with him.


	16. Don't Be Sorry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy hurts. Victor tries to understand. Freddy does what he can. It's enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This contains something that doesn't fit any normal definition of self-harm, but it's in the spirit of it, so please proceed with caution.
> 
> Frank discussion of the possibility of future sex in contained within. There's also about a paragraph of a flashback to actual underage sex, albeit not super explicit. If anybody needs to bail, bail now. Practice safe reading habits and do not proceed if this material is triggering. Confronting trauma can be healing, but overdoing it can be damaging. Stay safe.

Puberty was finally giving Billy body hair.

 He’d always expected that having a body that didn’t look like the one Jesse had touched would help bring him peace, somehow. It’d be better than before. If he didn’t see what Jesse had seen, maybe he could put him out of his head and finally stop having those dreams. As cool as Freddy was being about the whole thing, it was humiliating to know his boyfriend had heard him saying his abuser’s name. _You liked it,_ his mind whispered to him, late at night when no one else was around. _You loved it – you started it, sometimes! You got hard and what else was he supposed to do?_ The more Malloy-like part of his brain supplied, _he could have refrained from making a move regardless. Salem did. Your current boyfriend does._ He tried to take some comfort in that, tried to think that things had changed and even if he’d started something before, he wasn’t like that anymore. He’d moved on.

But when he saw himself when he undressed, he thought, _oh shit, I look like Jesse_ and a cold chill went down his spine. He could handle being a superhero. He couldn’t handle being a villain in his own life story. Rational thought went right out the window, and that same impulsivity that he’d had when he punched bullies or had made the decision to give his siblings superpowers seized him. He had to fix this. He _had_ to. The why and the how no longer mattered. Billy didn’t sit on his ass and wait for things in his life to fix themselves; he’d always been proactive before and he was now.

This was how Victor found him in the bathroom at three in the morning, yanking out every hair between his legs with a pair of needle nosed pliers.

 _God, give me strength,_ his foster father thought, but didn’t say, given that the sheer pain of what Billy had been doing already had rendered him pale and shaking. A quick glance – which Victor hated having to do, but if Billy was bleeding he needed, as a dad, to make sure his son was patched up – revealed both no blood and that he was more or less done. The sheer amount of time it must have taken was deeply unsettling, as was the way Billy locked up when Victor peeked in out of concern. His whole body froze, breathing going near-silent, eyes wide as a doe’s in headlights. Victor swallowed back another wave of deep, deep hatred for whoever had done this to Billy, whoever had managed to train the fight or flight response out of him and create this automatic freeze.

Deliberately looking away, Victor cleared his throat. “It’s very late, _mijo_. You need to – you need to get back to bed. What are you even doing up this late, buddy?”

 “I had a panic attack and, um, I guess I thought…” Billy yanked his underwear back on, absurdly quickly, in well-practiced motions. _Don’t think about where he learned that,_ Victor told himself, though he knew it was pointless. Billy’s voice shook slightly. “I thought if I got rid of what caused it, I’d be okay.”

“That’s… that’s not a terrible idea in theory, son, but you can’t do this to yourself. You could get an infection, or hurt yourself, and I can buy you shaving cream and a razor instead. You don't have to resort to this.” The idea of buying those things in this context was massively unappealing; it felt like encouraging Billy to hate his body and Victor hoped to God that wasn’t what it sounded like to his son. At the same time, was also necessary if this was the panicked alternative Billy was going to gravitate towards. He knew that if Billy had hurt himself, he wouldn’t have come to them for help, and that made the decision for him. “I also think you should talk to Dr. Malloy about this, Billy. I don’t know enough about these things to help you through it. I’m sorry.”

Billy blinked at him, confused. The sensation of the walls closing in was fading, now that his body felt like his own again. Something seemed to shift, too, when Victor took a step back. He hated himself for it, but he couldn’t deny that in this moment, he didn’t want to be around a guy, _any_ guy, no matter how much he trusted Victor. The thought was confusing. He knew Victor wouldn’t hurt him. He knew it with absolute certainty, and that went for everyone in this entire house, yet it was easier to breathe when he yanked his pants on and put distance between them. God, why couldn’t he focus his thoughts? Where did words go?

“You don’t have to be sorry. You didn’t do anything wrong,” Billy pointed out quietly, folding his arms. “We’re cool, man. Um, are you, uh, mad at me?”

“No,” he answered instantly. “No, not at all, I just – I don’t understand. And I wish I did, so I could help you through this, and it hurts my heart to see you like this. None of this makes me angry. None of this is your fault, Billy.”

He shrugged. _You don’t know that. **I** don’t know that. _“It’s fine.”

He’d always been a bad liar.

“No, it’s not,” Victor said gently, smiling warmly at him. “But it will be.”

“Are we sure I _deserve_ that?” Billy asked, surprising himself with his honesty and Victor with his raw self-hatred. “I’m kind of a tool, Vic. I really messed up a lot of times and I could’ve been happy with so many foster families if I’d just given them a chance, but I didn’t and I let myself think somebody loved me just ‘cause they touched me and what kind of freak-”

Victor put a hand on his shoulder. Billy froze again, locked up and visibly spaced out, and the man realized his mistake, pulling back. “Don’t call yourself that. Don’t call yourself that or blame yourself for wanting to believe in love. Family love, romance, all of it is so beautiful when it’s real that you’d be a bigger freak if you didn’t want that in your life.”

Billy shook his head. “You don’t understand.”

 _Freddy_. He was in love with Freddy. This love was different than the others; this love had the tenderness he felt towards Elio, the intense loyalty he felt towards Jesse, the safety and sense of being valued that he’d felt with Salem, and something more. He would die for Freddy. He could see himself building a life with Freddy, figuring out colleges to go to near each other like Mary and Shay, could imagine sharing everything with him without fear of judgment or being left behind. The depths of his own trust in the other boy shocked him; when had he fallen so in love, how had it grown from a breathless crush into a driving force? And how could he ever be worthy of that when he was like this? He had forced his way through the pain of ripping himself apart tonight to get even a brief break from the whispers in his head. He was hiding his superhero status from the only parents who had ever loved him. Worse, he, some filthy freak who’d started fucking when he was ten, had put his filthy hands on Freddy, the best friend and best son he and they could ever ask for.

“You’re right, Billy. I _don’t_ get it. But I promise, I’m trying my hardest, and if you want to talk, I’ll listen. I’m right here for you.”

“…I’m dating Freddy.” On instinct, he put up his hands, putting a shield between him and Victor as the panic returned in full, rose to a deafening roar in his head. “I haven’t touched him _I swear to God_ I would never – I’ve never – we’ve never – I wouldn’t – I can’t – please, please don’t throw me out _I’m so sorry_ I know I don’t deserve him but for some crazy reason he thinks I’m cool and I think he’s cool and-”

He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t speak. He was gasping, hauling air into his lungs fast and hard like he had laying on the ground after the choking game. There was, as before, an acute sense of being off balance, and he leaned against the wall, trying to steady himself. Everything was both blurrier and more vivid in color, bringing certain things into sharp focus even as the world seemed to fade away, replaced only with a future he couldn’t live with. This was it. This was the moment he knew he’d have been better if he’d goaded one of the cops into shooting him this last winter instead of trying to find some reason to keep moving forward. He could’ve sworn the wall behind him was curving, somehow, reality warping in monstrous ways as cold sweat beaded on his brow, ice slipping into his veins in remembrance of so many fragments of past trauma. Cornered in, he shut his eyes and waited. _He’s going to throw me out he’s going to hate me he’s going to hit me I deserve it I deserve it **I’m just like Jesse-**_

“We know,” his stepfather said firmly, and Billy barely managed to stay upright as he sank to the floor, sure that this was it. This was the end. Victor knew. He knew and there was no walking it back, now. Everything was falling apart again. Right? “Rosa and I trust you, Billy. You’ve been very honest with us about how you were abused, and you threw up when Freddy asked you about sex. I know you wouldn’t hurt him.” He knelt down, careful not to tower over him. “We wanted you to feel comfortable coming to us with it. Maybe we should have said something sooner, but parents are just people – we’re doing our best to make sure you have the least amount of pain in your life possible, and sometimes we make mistakes. I never meant to make you think we weren't alright with it."

Billy forced himself to look at him. Soundless tears were streaking down his cheeks, but his shoulders didn’t so much as shudder, body still motionless with fear. “You’re not… you’re not going to…”

“You can stay,” his foster father reassured him without pause. “I’m not throwing you out and no one is mad at you. I know Freddy would tell me if you did something he didn’t want you to, and I know you’d tell me first because I can see right now how much that would weigh on you.”

“I don’t…” He swallowed, throat feeling dry, barely able to meet Victor’s eyes. “I don’t want to hurt _anyone_. I don’t want to be a monster.”

Victor’s heart broke for him. “You aren’t. Oh, buddy, I’m so sorry you even think you could be.”

_I thought I already was. But Malloy says – and Freddy says – and Victor says-_

_Maybe I’m not._

It was a fragile hope, a spun-glass hope that was built to be shattered, but he glanced at his foster father whose face was full of love and concern and found the worse of the raw panic subsiding. All that was left was the dull fire of pain in his groin where he’d meticulously tried to remake himself into something more innocent and less lewd, and a headache from being up too many hours without sleep.

“You’re not going to make us change rooms?” he asked, voice shaking more than he would’ve liked. “I mean, I’m dangerous, right? Aren’t there rules for that kind of thing?”

“You’re no such thing, kid. You’re just in love and you’re going through a rough patch. I’m not going to make that worse for you – I hear you and Freddy talking some nights. You need him, and he needs someone who’ll talk about the intricacies of the Marvel What If universes or Japanese Spider-Man when his leg is bothering him and he can’t sleep.”

Billy choked out, in the tone of an apology, “I think I might love him. I didn’t want things to end up like that, but it did and I do.”

“That’s not a bad thing, _mijo_. I hope you can see that some day.”

 

* * *

 

 

Freddy rarely had sex dreams, but since Billy was directly above him, he could hear everything when he did.

Groaning internally at what a filthy pervert he was – _this is a natural result of what you went through_ , his inner Dr. Malloy said, though not loud enough to drown out the self-loathing – he tried putting the pillow over his head to block out the sound. In a bunk bed, though, Freddy shifting and grinding made the bed shake slightly, and after the kind of childhood Billy had had, he knew what Freddy was doing. He knew, he knew and he couldn’t get it out of his head and what did that say about him? His first instinct was to leave the room, but there was no way to do that without running the risk of Freddy waking up. Predictably, his body betrayed him, and he shut his eyes and buried his face in his pillow, hugging it close and curling up. He hated this. He hated everything about this.

_(Salem was so slender underneath him, his skin was so smooth and soft, and Billy was drunk on him. He gripped him by the hips, forcing himself not to focus on the divots of his visible bones, the hard ridges of them, not when Salem was letting him do this. Jesse would never let Billy top, essentially for the same reasons he would never blow Billy even though he expected Billy to do it for him, and Billy hadn’t ever really considered how much he’d been missing out on. He was terrified he was going to screw this up, hurt Salem horribly, but the older boy was barely able to form words around his choked out moans, begging him to keep going, keep moving, please-please-please-I-love-you-please, and the insane thought went through Billy, that this was okay if they were both into it. He kissed Salem as the thin boy stared at him in absolute adoration, hair falling into his eyes, soft and unguarded and in love. And in that moment, everything was perfect.)_

What would Freddy want? Would he want to – Billy didn’t dare finish the thought for fear of projecting what _he_ wanted personally onto his boyfriend. It didn’t matter, anyway; Billy would go along with exactly what Freddy wanted. He wouldn’t force him into anything, he wouldn’t ‘suggest’ things in a way that made it sound mandatory, he would do everything right by him. After all these years of messing things up, he’d found someone worth trying to fix himself for and a place with some actual permanence. He couldn’t let his own obnoxious horniness mess it up for him. Wait – what was better for Freddy’s health? There was no way to know if something was going to hurt him, with that disability, without asking a doctor. Billy couldn’t imagine how much of a pervert he’d look like if he asked that. Could he even ask Freddy? Was it even okay to be thinking about this? His gripped the side of his head, clenching hair between his fingers and yanking, hard, hating himself and hating his own thoughts.

“Billy?” Freddy whispered from below, having woken up with a gasp. “Uh, are you awake?”

Billy laid very still and tried to will the universe into letting Freddy buy that he was asleep.

“…that’s basically rhetorical, dude, I can hear you freaking out.”

He blinked back tears, grateful for the darkness. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you up. I know I did the other night, when I got back into bed at ass o’clock in the morning. And I’m still sorry for telling Victor without you. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“It’s cool. Um, are you okay, though?” Freddy sighed as the silence stretched on in response. “Shit. Stupid question. Sorry. I didn’t mean to-”

“Don’t.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t apologize. You’re normal. You didn’t do anything wrong, Freddy.” He shifted his hips, trying to find an angle that would somehow make him less hard. _I need to stop being like this. I don’t want to hurt him. I can’t believe I seriously just considered touching him like that. He doesn’t want that. He can’t, not with me. What is **wrong** with me?_ Billy forced himself to focus on a single train of thought a point of visual reference, like Malloy had advised, and in the dark that took the form of their clock, which informed him it was four in the morning. School was going to suck today, with that little sleep. “It’s – it’s me making things weird. I swear, dude, sometimes I don’t get why you’re dating me. You’re freaking awesome; you could get so many way more normal people, it’s kind of crazy you put up with all this.”

Freddy groaned. “One, no, I couldn’t. Nobody wants to bang the crippled kid. Secondly-"

“I do.” It was a murmur, almost too quiet for Freddy to hear, but it stopped him mid-word. Billy’s face flushed with shame. It was gross, really, how quickly that answer came to him, but Freddy deserved to know what kind of guy he was dating. He needed to know the truth. He’d always been honest with Billy, after all.

“Seriously? Even with the whole fucked up leg thing?”

Billy was generally pretty focused and of a one-track mind, yet he’d never changed gears faster than when he heard the doubt and self-loathing in Freddy’s voice. He could shove away all his angst, panic and pain for Freddy and he _would_ , damnit, if it meant making sure he was okay. Nothing was more important than making it clear, right now and right here, that Freddy was not the problem. There were a lot of problems with their relationship – living together, fighting supervillains, Billy’s past – but Freddy’s disability wasn’t one of them. It hadn’t ever been. The first time Billy saw him, he saw his crutch and thought he was cute anyway. That wasn’t going to change, no matter what.

“First of all, fuck everybody and anybody who would pass up on you for your leg. They’re shit and you deserve better, and that’s not counting the superhero thing. Secondly, if I thought I could do it without having a panic attack I would blow you right now, Freeman, just to get this through your thick head. So stop hating on yourself for not looking like a male model or whatever your deal is, alright?”

Now it was Freddy’s turn for stunned silence. “That’s the most romantic use of the word ‘blow’ in the history of ever, dude.”

“Yeah, well, I mean it. So cut it out with the angst. This isn’t my thing, okay? I don’t know how to do the romantic boyfriend shtick and none of the books you got have helped me with that.” Which was, albeit accidentally, an admission that he’d been reading bits and pieces of them, despite how dorky getting books inherently was. “Ugh, this shit is way easier in comics.”

“Kind of – they’re better at the romance, but then supervillains get involved,” his boyfriend noted sagely, yawning and turning over. “And Sivana was a dick, but he didn’t care if you were dating anyone.”

Though the embarrassing, humiliating hard on had yet to fade, hearing Freddy casually decide not to pass judgment on him for being a weirdo helped take the raw edge off of his panic, and he managed to chuckle. _He doesn’t hate me. Oh, thank God, he doesn’t hate me._ “Yeah… um, Freddy? Can I ask you something?”

“…yeah?” there was a hopeful note, there, that threw Billy off a little.

“Someday, when I’m not gonna freak out, and we’re not in a house with way too many people, do you want me to…?”

Freddy choked on air. “Oh my God, _yes_ – uh. I mean. If you want to. Do you? I looked up some books on… you know, on what happened to you… and the books said you might not want to. Or that you might really want to. It’s confusing.”

“I do, Freddy. I do, I just go back and forth between not wanting to, wanting to but not wanting to freak out and really, really wanting to. It’s confusing as shit on my end, too.”

“But Malloy’s helping, right? On the confusion thing, I mean, not on, like, talking you into wanting to bang me. That’d be really weird.”

Billy groaned. “I knew what you meant, you dork, and yeah, he’s helping. This, um, this just kind of takes time, I guess. Sorry.”

“In the words of a hot jackass I know: stop apologizing. You didn’t do anything wrong.” He stared up in the dark, wondering if he should say the next part, but couldn’t refrain from adding: “For what it’s worth, I want to, too. When you’re cool with it, though.”

“…thanks, Freddy. I – I – shit. I should be able to say it by now.” His fists clenched, angrily, as he remembered that first night Jesse had thrown it back in his face. _(“You said you loved me.”)_

Freddy was almost afraid to ask, aware the line between conversation and panic was razor-thin when it came to this topic. Billy could take almost anything, but not this. “Is the reason you _can’t_ say the l-word because of that guy you have nightmares about?”

“Yeah.” Billy’s voice was a self-hating whisper; his voice broke in a mix of frustration and tears. “Yeah, it is. But I – you know I-”

“I know you love me, yeah. And I love you, too.” There was more, there, that he wanted to say and wanted to try to convey, but he didn’t have the words, and he couldn’t remember the right ones to borrow from what he’d read. "So we're okay, right?"

"Right." He was surprised he found he meant it. "Yeah. We're okay."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: I need to be less angsty in my writing and get back to a normal update schedule.  
> Brain: *gives me this to write instead*  
> Me: ...well, I guess it's better than not updating?


	17. Morning/Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The cracks, past and present, begin to show.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains a couple more uses of the F word than prior chapters. It's mostly used in reference to Billy and Jesse, because euphemisms like 'had sex' didn't feel honest for me as the writer to use in the narrative. It's used once by Freddy referring to his disability because teenagers aren't known for their tact and he's frustrated.
> 
> I'm pretty sure Jesse qualifies as a domestic abuser, if you're comfortable applying that term to two teenagers (I am, but legally that's murky). You know the scene we've had two micro flashbacks to, with Jesse choking Billy? Yeah, we're getting the full scene with context, here, and it's not pretty. If that's a trigger for you, you're going to want to bail out on this one.
> 
> There's a line that's casual Islamophobia but it's largely because Billy, like most Americans, is hugely ignorant of Islam and, at least in this case, it isn't meant maliciously. There's some internalized ableism in Freddy's part. That'll get better, trust me.

_Jesse was scaring him.  
_

_He hadn’t been scared before when they’d gone out at night. In Philadelphia, the threat of being murdered or mugged was repeated so often that Billy, like many people, had ceased taking it seriously. It was either that or live life in fear, and Billy wasn’t about to back down from life and live it on edge all the time. He’d never been someone who knew how to walk away from danger. He rushed towards it, often on Jesse’s heels, and in this way they had explored the city together many times, at hours where the world seemed hollowed out, people few and far between in the depths of the night. Winter was the worst for Jesse. The short hours of sunlight, the lack of people and the insistence of foster parents that he remain trapped indoors pushed all the wrong buttons. Billy woke up to the blond shaking him and promising adventure a lot more when the weather got cold, with tonight as no exception._

_The clock in the park was old-fashioned, Roman numerals and old statuary, one of those memorials donated forever ago by a rich family that probably didn’t even live here anymore. When Billy glanced at it, he was relieved to see the clock hands inching towards four in the morning, if only because it proved something was wrong tonight. Jesse had been restless, far more so than usual, and they’d been out for hours, until the cold was clawing into Billy’s eyes, his hands, even his feet right through his gloves and shoes, but Jesse wasn’t slowing down. He paced back and forth, running a hand through his snowy hair again and again. His younger boyfriend leaned against the clock, watching, a familiar helplessness growing inside him; they’d done this before._

_Every so often someone would cross Jesse and he would act as if the world was ending. He’d repeat an reinterpret what had been said, what had been done, building it up in his head, twisting it from one conversation to a sign the world itself was out to get him. He was angry. Billy was at a loss on what to do. Whenever he tried to calm Jesse down, there was a good chance he’d say something that Jesse would twist into Billy turning on him or everybody being against him. These pitch black moods could roll over him after a perfectly stable day, a perfectly fine week, and they could lift by morning or keep going for days, and no one could predict any of it. It was always worse when someone had genuinely wronged Jesse. He’d broken a lot of things and punched a lot of people in his life._

_And, of course, there was Wyatt, who Jesse had pushed out in front of traffic. A broken shoulder, shattered femur, and concussion that wiped the encounter from Wyatt’s head had left him unable to recall enough to press charges, and that was the first moment Billy was ever truly afraid of Jesse. That was the moment he knew the depths of violence he was capable of. He was aware it was his fault for crossing Wyatt in the first place, but it was still disconcerting all the same._

_Wyatt, though, had only threatened Billy. Naiana Shepherd had caught on to what was going on between them and gone to their foster parents._

_That they didn’t believe her was irrelevant. She’d called Jesse a monster, to his face, and tried to convince Billy to talk to their foster parents, who were confused by how calmly and easily Billy brushed off their concerns. He was a bad liar most of the time, but he was good at speaking with conviction. He wasn’t lying when he said Jesse had always looked out for him, had never made him do anything bad and had never made him do anything he didn’t want to do. His demeanor wasn’t one of an abused kid. Odds were high that absolutely no one would remember that Naiana had ever said anything to anybody by the end of the week. Billy wasn’t worried about her – Salem hadn’t been able to separate them so far, so there was no reason to assume a literal kid was going to pull it off. A normal person would have stepped aside, let it go, kept their head down until the storm had passed, but there was nothing normal about Jesse Dobrescu. When he was kind, he could give Billy the world on a silver platter, stealing food and good clothes and anything else his beloved Bill wanted._

_When he was bad, he was a nightmare. He’d been up for hours contemplating exactly how to enact his revenge, with the obvious stumbling block being that there was no doubt that Naiana would immediately go to the cops or to their foster parents if he did anything. The sense of being trapped or being out of options was only throwing gasoline on the fire inside him, turning him from furious to something out of a horror movie, and Billy was stuck here, miles from the foster home, in the cold, with him. He took a step closer when Jesse stopped pacing, waiting for him to snap at him, then another when he didn’t, carefully putting a hand on his shoulder._

_“If we stay out here much longer, you’re gonna get sick, dude,” Billy pointed out, mixing his trademark casual attitude with some affection. “We can figure things out when you’re warm, okay?”_

_Jesse snorted, some warmth coming back into his eyes. Under the yellow light of the park’s street lamps, they looked black rather than grey. “Typical Bill, trying to mommy people older than you. One day you’re gonna piss somebody off with that, you know.”_

_“So? I got you for that,” he joked, and Jesse leaned down to kiss him on the nose, making Billy turn away from him, groaning. “Dude, it’s way too cold to get sappy. That’s not charming or whatever if I can’t feel it. C’mon,” the younger boy tugged on his hand, “let’s go back.”_

_He didn’t move, though, shaking some strands of white-gold hair out of his eyes, the low lighting making it more gold than white, shadows severe in the overcast, moonless night. He’d gotten taller lately, much to Billy’s eternal annoyance. Now he loomed over Billy, tugging him close, reaching out to touch Billy’s neck with fingers cold as Arctic water and about as inviting. Some kind of decision was being made in his head; his boyfriend could see it in his face, in the way his eyebrows lowered in concentration._

_“Nai said you don’t like it – being with me,” he clarified, voice low and icy as the night with sheer contempt. “But you do, right?”_

_Billy’s mouth went dry. A pang of genuine anxiety went through him, but he nodded regardless._

_“I need you to say it. Tell me you like being with me. That you love me.”_

_“Do you even need to ask? Of course I love you, Jesse. You’re always there for me, you never get mad when I have a freakout, you’ve given me so much over the years, and like, I never had to ask you for any of it – you’re pretty much the perfect boyfriend, other than being taller than me.” He grinned. Jesse did not. The joke didn’t land, and Jesse pulled him in closer by the wrist, fingers digging into Billy’s skin hard enough to bruise._

_“Tell me you like it when I fuck you.” It was a demand, not a request. There was weight behind it, there was something crucial hanging in the balance, a_ need _that had turned Jesse’s eyes to black voids in the night._

_He tried to step away from him. Jesse grabbed his other wrist and held him in place. Billy couldn’t speak; he tried to, but nothing came out. It was crazy. He did like it, of course he did, it was obvious, wasn’t it? Hadn’t they ruined enough sheets together for the answer to be self-evident? If he didn’t like it, he wouldn’t have let it get this far. He wouldn’t have chugged whole cans of soda when he was ten, eleven, when he was too young to really get it up without that sort of extra push, if he hated it. The only person who’d ever contested that was Salem, who was Muslim and probably didn’t know anything about bi guys or gay guys or the sex that went on between dudes. Billy knew he liked it. He knew it and he tried to say it. His tongue refused to move, his vocal chords would not let him produce the sounds, his lungs seized up in a refusal he didn’t understand._

_The silence stretched on. Something in Jesse’s expression_ broke _, all affection and love snapping out of him in a singular moment. Billy’s heart raced, and he tried harder, harder, to get the words out, to tell him it was all a misunderstanding, he did like it, he_ did _, but he couldn’t._

 _A second later Jesse threw him to the ground. He was on top of Billy in half a heartbeat, hands fastening around his neck, betrayal and anger and_ hate _driving him._

_He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe and Jesse’s grip on his throat was iron, the frost of the ground was seeping into his skin as the older boy straddled him, weighing him down. He was drowning on land in Jesse's eyes, cold and gray like a frozen ocean._

_“This is between us, Batson,” he whispered, breath hot on Billy’s face in the cold November air. “Tell one person, and I swear to God I’ll kill myself.” He released his grip on the younger boy’s throat, watching him gasp for air. After a few moments, his expression softened, and he pressed a kiss to Billy’s face, trailed them down to his neck. “I can’t lose you. They’ll take you away from me, Bill. You’re all I have. Don’t you get it? Without you, I don’t wanna be alive.”_

_Billy shut his eyes and tried desperately not to think, but the threat hung over him like a dark cloud, a leaden weight. He didn’t doubt Jesse’s conviction for a second. What he doubted, what he’d never doubted before in his life, was whether or not he loved Jesse the way he’d always believed he had. Did he like it when they fucked? Did he like who Jesse was outside of those sleepless moments of affection and adoration? Did he have a choice? Nobody else was as permanent as Jesse was, nobody else cared enough to come back to him again and again, no one looked out for Billy except for himself and his boyfriend. And what kind of monster would that make him, if he walked away from Jesse after he’d said outright that he’d put his blood on Billy’s hand if he did?_

_He didn’t want that. He didn’t want Jesse to die, not even after this._

_Shoving himself upright in the unbearably cold night – or morning, it was hard to tell anymore – he stumbled to his feet on unsteady legs, and followed the faint prints in the frost that would guide him back to the only real home he’d ever known, not a place, but a person._

* * *

 

Freddy’s leg hurt badly enough that getting out of bed was too much for him.

It didn’t stop him from trying, or stop him from trying to argue with Billy to just go get him his wheelchair from the linen closet, but when he couldn’t sit up without breaking into a cold sweat, his boyfriend called for Rosa. Rosa, of course, absolutely refused to let her son put himself through a full day of school in that condition. Freddy could grit his teeth through everything, he had, and thus he hadn’t ever really gotten used to the idea that he might have the option of not powering on through it. After being passed through five foster homes who ‘couldn’t handle’ his disability, he’d learned he could make his stays at any given home longer by not letting himself take a day off.

More troubling, he’d learned and internalized a lot of shame. Billy had noticed it almost from the get-go, the mix of jokes he made about his disability that often went from humor to compensating and the refusal to discuss the ways his disability actually affected him. He didn’t want to say he couldn’t do something. He would bite his lip through the worst pangs of pain unless Billy stole aspirin for him, at which point guilt would kick in and he’d take it. Above all, he looked disgusted with himself for needing help. Billy wanted to find whoever had taught him that and beat them with a crutch for extra dramatic irony. Maybe one day, he would – superpowers gave him a lot more options to be a protective boyfriend. For now, he found his options limited to lingering beside Freddy, perched on the edge of his mattress, rubbing his thigh.

“We look like a gay superhero parody,” Freddy muttered, but his expression was incredibly fond. “If I ask how you know how to give a decent massage, is that going to end in weirdness and panic and stuff?”

“I had a girlfriend with chronic fatigue,” he corrected, with a wry smile. “Not every day of my life was a Lifetime special, you know. I had some non-shitty stuff happen. Remind me to tell you the story of Pasha sometime.”

“Pasha?”

“Stolen Siberian flying squirrel – well, I mean, I was going to return him – see, I was in a foster home with a Russian kid, and she missed home, so we went to a mall and – hi Rosa.” He turned the best ‘I’m not up to no good’ smile he could on her, which worked on most other people but fell flat when turned on her. She raised an eyebrow at him, and he dropped the act, sighing, “Look, nobody got hurt, not even the squirrel, so, like, it’s not a big deal, and we didn’t know Pasha was a… shit, what was the girl version of that name that Alyona gave her… anyway we didn’t know the squirrel was a girl, or pregnant, and I feel like being grounded for a month was super disproportionate.”

“…I have a lot of questions,” his foster mother said, torn between laughter, curiosity and some part of her that told her perhaps this was a story she didn’t want to know, “but I’m going to put them aside because you need to go eat breakfast. Just do me a favor and don’t tell Darla that story. She’d want a squirrel of her own.”

Billy nodded, but didn’t move to leave Freddy’s side, gazing at him with poorly concealed worry. “Can I maybe stay home today? I don’t want to leave him like this. I’m ninety-nine percent sure that’s a douchebag move, and I’m supposed to be his bestie.”

“Dude,” Freddy groaned, “Darla’s the only one who gets to call us that. And I’m fine! I can hang out here for a day, seriously. This isn’t one of those homes where they leave me alone in bed all day.”

“I’ll stay home today.” Rosa’s heart broke at the obvious surprise on Billy’s face. God, give me the strength not to go give other foster parents a piece of my mind. “I always do, when this happens. Freddy helps me keep up with what cartoons and comics are popular, and we watch or read some together. It’s a chance for him to tutor me on how to be a cool mom.”

“You already are one,” Billy muttered, and she beamed at him, making him look away. He wasn’t sure how to deal with her open motherly affection. “But Freddy, if you wanna talk, just text me and I’ll get back to you. That’s basically what study hall exists for.”

Freddy rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Stop feeling me up and go get breakfast.”

Horror flickered over Billy’s face as his hand stilled. In a moment, he was back to the same defensive, tense posture as when he’d first arrived at the Vasquez house, and then he was gone before Freddy could apologize, out the door and down the stairs in a flurry of motion. Freddy winced, not from pain so much as from sheer regret. He could feel the aftershocks of Billy’s touch, the fading warmth where his hands had been. _Shit shit shit WHY DID I SAY THAT shit-_ He would have rolled over and buried his face in his pillow, but the stabbing pain in his hip and thigh told him that would be a mistake that’d haunt him for the rest of the day. He settled for shutting his eyes and mouthing profanities he didn’t dare say out loud in front of Rosa, blinking his eyes open when she gently stroked his hair, tucking stray curls back into formation.

“I’ll talk to him,” she promised, smiling though there was sadness in her eyes. “It’ll be alright, Freddy. Billy’s just… he’s not in a good place, right now. You might not want to make those kind of jokes just yet.”

“I know, I know, it just slipped out,” he explained, mentally kicking himself. “Seriously, I don’t think Billy’s going to be actually okay with feeling me up for, uh, maybe a year? Something like that. Which is good, because it’d take at least a year and a half for me to want him to see my fucked up leg-”

“Language!”

“Sorry, sorry. Anyway… what?” he wasn’t too distracted by the pain to see the disapproval she was practically beaming at him.

Rosa took his hand, squeezing it gently. “Freddy, do you really think people care that much about your leg? Do you think it’s something love can’t overcome?”

She had a unique talent for making his worries about this sound foolish. He’d tried to explain to her, more than once, that he’d learned from his first foster parents how incredibly unlikely it was any girl would be into him. They heard him try to flirt with another girl and shut him down so hard he hadn’t tried since. He hadn’t tried with Billy, either; if Billy hadn’t acted on impulse and kissed him that day he’d gotten Superman to show up at school, Freddy would’ve been content to pine after him in private. Years later, he still remembered his first foster father telling him exactly how few women wanted to kiss a cripple. It was the first time Freddy had heard the word ‘cripple’ thrown at him, and it hit with the force and precision of a sniper bullet. Worse was his first foster mother saying, kindly, that he could be happy without a girlfriend.

Freddy wasn’t stupid. He knew Billy was good looking, he had a grin that made everybody swoon who wasn’t a total idiot, and he was experienced. Ridiculously, frighteningly, sickeningly experienced. And yes, Freddy was aware there was nothing sexy about it. He didn’t feel remotely turned on thinking about what Billy had been through. What he felt, instead, was incredible inadequacy. Freddy was a virgin by every definition, and he couldn’t help wondering how bad of a letdown he’d be in bed compared to the two guys Billy had been with. Billy’s moment with Salem being completely consensual and mostly not messed up made it worse, somehow. He was competing with an older, able bodied boy who Billy had felt safe getting in bed with and Freddy couldn’t imagine he was the more appealing option. How could he hope to hold a candle to someone who still popped up in Billy’s sex dreams?

He couldn’t imagine a future where Billy was still with him. Freddy felt his eyes fill up with tears and hoped to God Rosa chalked it up to leg pain.

She leaned down, pressing a lovingly, motherly kiss to his forehead. “Oh, Freddy. I know you can’t see it from your end, but Billy’s head over heels for you. He doesn’t care about what you think he does; he’s more worried about how you’re doing than he is about himself, and you were the first one he opened up to. He has more love for you than he knows what to do with.”

“Uh, did you forget the awful joke I just made? I’m a jerk sometimes. Accidentally, yeah, but still.”

“Billy’s had his moments, too, and you’ve both worked through those very well, given your ages. You’ll be okay. You need to talk about some things, sure, but it’s not the end of the world, baby.” She finger-combed his hair into place, a comforting touch that made him want to believe her. “Try not to be too hard on yourself. You’re too young to be this sad.”

“I’m pretty sure I’m not the kid you need to say that to here,” he muttered, but conceded the point, laying his head back on the bed to try to get some rest.

Rosa smiled and shrugged. “You both need to hear it, so I’ll say it to both of you. I’m a mom. That’s my superpower.”

He smiled, in spite of himself. “Yeah. It is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm very sorry for the unexpected angst but people, I'm going to level with you here: I'm not nearly as in control of the narrative as any of you think I am. Not in terms of the mood. The mood picks itself as I write.


	18. Weird Good

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy tries to keep the past from repeating. Eugene missteps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really went back and forth with myself on this. I don't think I've ever written and rewritten anything so much in my life. We're not going to go into another round A Character Is Traumatized And Everything Is Awful, because shit gets stopped before it snowballs, but it's still some rough reading. It wasn't exactly fun to write, either. If it weren't plot-necessary I'd write around this - unfortunately it left too many plot holes open if I did, so. Here we are.
> 
> CW/TW: Semi-detailed depiction of pre-adolescent sexuality. Bail right on out if you need to, because it's not super detailed but the detailing that's present is very definitely enough to be triggering. Practice safe reading, people.
> 
> Billy's not going to be doing great mentally in the next chapter but he has a therapist, so. I promise we're not plunging back into the darkness with this chapter, just... some really uncomfortable territory, for a bit.
> 
> I swear to God this is the last time I'm using choking as a motif in this work.

The amazing thing about being on the verge of a perpetual breakdown was just how long he could put that off for. 

Billy had a lot of experience keeping it together for the sake of other people. He survived repeated loss of contact with friends and other foster kids for the sake of Jesse and the scant few friends he had. He could take being broken up with if he focused on finding his mom. He could manage not to panic while facing down a literal supervillain so long as he kept his focus on his family. Over the years, he’d learned not to think in ways that induced panic – thinking of the future as a whole, of what he’d do to try to get through college or figure out what he wanted to do for a living or how his life would be going this time next year were all things that ate away at him, so he pushed it away. Billy focused on the now. And in the present, as flawed as everything was, he had Freddy.

He had let himself be choked, repeatedly, for his mother. He had taken dares and done dumb things and stolen and lied his way across the state for a woman who he only just barely remembered. For Jesse, he had lied to the cops, making up an alibi for him and bribing another kid into confirming that alibi when they were asked, getting the blond out of the consequences of pushing Wyatt into traffic. To save the collection of misfit children that he now called his dumb siblings and even dumber, more lovable boyfriend, he would’ve let Sivana kill him, honestly. There had never been a plan in Billy’s life that went beyond three steps. Step one: find a goal/person. Step two: fight/bleed/choke for them. Step three: hold onto that goal/person and don’t give up on them.

_(She gave up on him, he could see it in his mother’s eyes, she’d given up on him before he even had a chance to try to win her back-)_

Freddy hadn’t given up on him, so Billy didn’t give up on him. He tried to force himself to be normal, and it mostly worked. When he was talking comics with Freddy – Ultimate Spider-Man was the superior Spider-Man and Billy stood by that statement, damnit – and making sarcastic commentary about superhero news, he was happy. He was happy joking around with Pedro about music, perpetually fooling him by pretending not to know who famous singers were. (Pedro had never hugged Billy until he thought, for a horrifying moment, that Billy didn’t know any Fall Out Boy songs. It was as funny as it was awkward.) Most days, he could make it through a day without kicking himself too hard for his own fleeting dirty thoughts or weirdly sexual impulses. They were blips on the radar if he put his energy and focus somewhere else, and with Dr. Malloy’s advice he started to learn how to do that in a more diverse way. Living or dying for one person was a high stakes game. Living for an entire family, a boyfriend, some casual friends at school and a superhero identity and fanbase Malloy didn’t know about took up more time, but it also made it a lot easier to find reasons to get out of bed in the morning.

Hard as it was, he was making it through each day. Even if his eyes lingered on Freddy when they got dressed or he found himself drifting into a weird sort of nostalgia for Jesse and the things they’d done together, he was okay, more or less. He could make himself be okay, basically, so long as he and Freddy didn’t talk about sex. That was a landmine, a bomb waiting to go off, and he kept his focus trained on diverting away from that conversation however he could. They’d have to go there eventually, but they were fourteen and neither of them particularly _wanted_ to. It made it weird when they hung out, and he didn’t want that. He loved the way things were now, all teasing, comics, movies and complaining about homework inbetween making YouTube AMAs for their superhero personas and trying to come up with ways to make their lair better. This was fine. So long as he kept sex out of it, he thought he just might make it through this.

Eyes trained on that landmine in the distance, he was wholly unprepared for the way the topic came up, suddenly and explosively, with Eugene.

 

* * *

 

 

The bruises around Eugene’s neck ached, raw and hot, too hot, like the hands that were now miles away were still there.

He felt – he didn’t know how he felt. Superhero stuff wasn’t supposed to involve this sort of thing, but everything had gotten really weird really fast. Lina hadn’t wanted to tell him about Jesse unless he hung out with her. She’d seen him de-Shazam, so she knew his superhero identity, and her blackmail was just… asking him to goof off with her. Eugene was cool with that because he didn’t have a lot of friends, either. He wasn’t really picked on, not like Freddy was, and he wouldn’t say he felt like anybody really disliked him at school. He just wasn’t cool, and he knew it. Lina seemed to think the same about herself, and even if the whole point of flying to Narberth was to get to the bottom of whatever had happened with Billy, Eugene couldn’t find it in him to walk away from her. Superhero investigations didn’t have to be all lying and sneaking around, right? He’d read some Golden Age comics where it seemed like heroes spent more time having fun with their friends, and he wanted that.

And they had fun, he guessed, even if she had to basically drag him along when she did something crazy, which was a lot of the time. If he had his way they would’ve sat around playing video games, but she had other ideas that were, admittedly, a lot cooler sounding. In a way, she sort of reminded him of Billy – bold and unapologetic and dark-eyed, with flashes of something angry and dark that scared him. Billy had a therapist, though, while Lina didn’t really have anyone. Nobody talked to her at her foster home, nobody really noticed when she cut classes, and Eugene sometimes didn’t try to get information out of her about Jesse at all. Sometimes they just flew to an abandoned building and went exploring, or they went to the park to see how high they could get on the swings without superpowers, or he showed her his latest favorite game. Sometimes she just needed somebody to be around and Eugene maybe wasn’t the coolest superhero in the Shazamily, but he was there.

What he did learn about Jesse was hard to parse. He was moody, angry, destructive, and then sometimes he was awesome, amazing, and gave Lina everything she wanted. She loved him, until they had a fight and she hated him. She loved him in that she _loved_ him, and Eugene was really not sure how to feel. Lots of kids had crushes on older guys, but it felt weird with how much older Jesse was than her. That wasn’t normal. On the other hand, Jesse could get wrapped up in his other job and barely talk to her for a week or two. Lina claimed to be dating him. Nobody ever said that Jesse was claiming the same. As weird as it was, that only made Eugene feel worse for Lina. He hadn’t ever had a crush on anyone, but it must really suck to like someone a lot, have them be nice to you, then have them duck out and not say they liked you back.

He wasn’t oblivious to the fact that Jesse was way more present in the lives of younger kids at her foster home. What he couldn’t put together was what kind of friend he’d been to Billy. Did he start to help Billy out, and then stop being around like he did with Lina? Did Billy used to have a crush on him? Eugene was a smart kid, but relationships were totally beyond him, and he didn’t have a clue what was going on.

All he knew was that he liked hanging out with Lina and for all her bad ideas, she could be pretty nice. Increasingly, they met up with her friends from school to play games. He’d learned how to play chicken with a truck thanks to her, something that left him shaken for days afterwards, like the vibration was permanently lodged in the core of his body. They’d gone into an allegedly haunted and very definitely off-limits building and had to run from the cops. Eugene drew the line at stealing for the sake of Truth Or Dare. Lina didn’t. Lina didn’t draw the line at anything. She could and would do anything for as little of a reason as wanting to, even if it was crazy stuff, and he thought that was the coolest thing. Nothing scared her. Nobody intimidated her. Eugene wasn’t sure if he was into girls or guys or nobody at all, but he was into badasses. He wanted to be badass, too. Fearless, like kids said Batman was, and cool and collected like Superman, and one thing led to another until he found himself playing the Choking Game with her and her friends.

He hated every second of it right up until he blacked out. Everything sort of tilted sideways, black dots hazily creeping into his vision. He felt as if gravity had stopped working, like in a video game set in space where artificial gravity wasn’t on, floating away from all the pain in his throat entirely. The floating feeling was nothing compared to having Lina fret over him, holding him close as she tried to get him to wake up. Someone had called him a pussy. Lina had produced an X-Acto knife from her pocket and told that kid to back off. It had been amazing, to have somebody so cool and awesome care so much about him even though he’d only lasted a single round, and he wanted to go again just to get her to look at him like that for a little while longer. Eugene still didn’t get kissing as a concept, but he got the idea of cuddling. He loved nuzzling up to her with one of her arms around him, the other holding out the hobby knife like a sword to keep him safe, listening to her heartbeat through her coat and his heartbeat pulse through his head. She looked so pretty in that moment, all confidence and love and strength.

The idea he might have a crush was weirder to him than the superhero thing, the Choking Game and the fact that she carried an X-Acto knife on her.

The other kids didn’t want to play the game with him if Lina was going to get that angry over it. That was kind of fair, kind of not, because Eugene was pretty sure it was his fault for crying when he passed out, which nobody else seemed to do.

Lina pinched him and told him not to be silly; nobody could help it if they cried when they weren’t conscious. “Some of my friends are assholes,” she told him, frowning, “but that doesn’t mean you’re not cool. It just means they’re being jerks today. Look, don’t worry about it, we can play the game without them anyway.”

“We can?” Eugene was a little confused. Didn’t they need someone to be on the lookout for adults who might freak out, and someone to catch them? “How would that work? I don’t want to get hurt – and I definitely don’t want to hurt you. You’re pretty much the only friend that’s not over a computer connection or living with me.”

She patted him on the shoulder, something she often did when he lamented his own lack of coolness. “Give it time. And anyway, we just need something soft to land on and we’ll be fine. I know you’d superhero me off to the hospital if something went wrong and I can use your phone to call somebody if you get hurt. We’re not little kids, so we don’t need a whole group of people. We’re responsible.”

They absolutely were not, Lina least of all between them, but then he thought about it. Actually, she made sure other kids in her group home had enough notebooks and stuff for school and made sure there was food for the kid there who was lactose intolerant. She only stole things because she was saving up money to see her family someday. That was pretty responsible. Eugene carried around a First Aid Kit in his backpack and didn’t leave home without telling his parents, he made sure Darla didn’t get ahold of any T or M rated video games and he was here in the first place to make sure Lina was safe from Jesse. They actually _were_ responsible. They did some not safe things, but in a safe way, with plans on what to do if they got hurt. They were smart enough to know that it was better to get in trouble by telling adults what they’d been doing rather than avoid it and try to cover it up. Lina was right – he’d fly her right to a hospital if she stopped breathing altogether. He wouldn’t even consider any other option. And for all the ways she endangered herself, she never pushed him to do anything he didn’t want to do or anything that she didn’t trust he’d do correctly.

“Okay,” he told her, not sure why his face went hot when he said, “it’s okay if it’s you.”

She took his hand and squeezed it tight.

Somebody had left a mattress in the lot behind the hardware store near the park. The park was ten minutes from the hospital by foot, so it was the perfect location. Again, they were responsible enough to figure that out, and Eugene was proud of the fact that he examined the mattress for loose springs or obvious signs of mold to make sure it was safe. (With his mother, he hadn’t known to examine the house, to check to see that things were really okay. When the county condemned their house, Eugene had been stunned. She said it was fine, so he’d thought it was.) He wasn’t a little kid. Lina wasn’t, either, or she wouldn’t have tested out the hole in the fence to make sure she could theoretically fit another person through it. They knew what they were doing.

He really hated choking her. Nothing about that felt good or right, but it was fair. Even little kids knew it couldn’t always be their turn, and he made sure his coat was there for her to use as a pillow in case she needed a minute afterwards. Every muscle in his body seized up when she started wheezing and he froze when she fell back onto the mattress, only moving his eyes to her chest, her mouth, taking in the erratic breathing with wide, terrified eyes. It was okay. She woke up, coughed, and grinned up at him, giggling at how freaked out he was. After a second, he laughed too. She was right. He was just being a goody-goody two shoes, again, and when it was his turn he tried not to look worried or make it weird.

It was weird, though, because when he woke up he felt strange. There was that same warm, loved feeling from before, with Lina looking down at him with so much concern and that little smile she never seemed to smile around other people. Eugene felt as overheated as last time, even without his jacket on, only now the heat seemed to pool down inbetween his legs. His first, horrified thought was that he’d peed himself, but when he eased up on his elbows to glance down and check, that wasn’t it. Relieved beyond all words, he flopped back onto the mostly soft surface, blinking up at the sky, confused and unsure of what to do, the dizzy, spinning high still mostly intact as Lina reached down to touch him. The second her hand made contact with his crotch, he twitched, legs drawing up a little, instinctively trying to cover himself. But he couldn’t think completely clearly, and it was Lina, and they were all alone. It was okay, right? Sure, it’d be different if she were a guy or somebody older or something, he’d heard whispers about that kind of thing in other foster homes, but it was Lina. A girl, a girl his age, and a friend.

“I really like you,” she admitted to him, face red, looking away. “A lot. _A lot_ a lot. I know I say Jesse’s my boyfriend but he’s… he’s not nice like you, not most of the time. I don’t think he likes me back. Do, um, do you…?”

“I like you,” Eugene said, and it felt completely true. Scrunching up his nose, he added, confused, “I don’t like kissing and I don’t wanna go on, like, a date or whatever? But I like you a lot and I like it when we hang out. You make me feel cool.”

“You _are_ cool,” Lina corrected him. She looked at him, some of the tension leaving her face as she added, “I don’t like kissing, either. But there’s other stuff, so whatever. It doesn’t matter.”

He felt her fingers start to move in circular patterns over the fabric of his jeans, and made an embarrassing squeaking sound. Lina laughed, and he reached up and yanked on her braid. “You’re a jerk, Alianait!”

“And you didn’t say my name right _at all_!” she giggled, swatting at his hand. He managed to snap the elastic around the end, unraveling it, and she shot him a glare. “You owe me a new hair scrunchie, you know.”

“You still owe me a Snickers, though,” he pointed out, squeaking again when she did _something_ with her fingers, a sort of twisting-kneading that made his hips lift off the mattress involuntarily. Eugene twitched again, legs awkwardly locking around her sides. “That… almost hurt? It’s weird.”

“Weird good or weird bad?” She always asked that before they did something stupid. Weird bad was basically the same as saying he didn’t want to do something. But what was it that they were even doing? Eugene bit his lip, tilting his head and crinkling his nose as some of Lina’s long hair brushed his face. She smelled like rain and spraypaint.

“…weird good, I guess.” 

 

* * *

 

 

Billy knew what the bruises meant.

He knew and it brought the high of having been out on patrol with Freddy crashing down. All the magnificent badass confidence of being superheroes shattered like a beer bottle against an alleyway wall, and he forgot Freddy was beside him entirely, storming through the backdoor towards Eugene with single minded purpose. He didn’t bother trying to catch the door behind him, letting it slam loudly, not hearing it over the rapid-fire pounding of his own thoughts. That it was midnight didn’t matter, that he’d only gotten a brief look through the window wasn’t enough to keep his anxiety from flaring up, nothing was going to make this okay for him. The sense that everything was wrong was immediate and overwhelming.

_Oh shit oh no please no Eugene’s too smart to get mixed up in this shit what was he THINKING-_

It was worse up close than it was when glimpsed through the kitchen window, or maybe that was just amplified by the guilty way Eugene stared at him, blinking behind his glasses when Billy hit the lights. He could practically tell the size the hands from the imprints of fingers, from the matching smaller bruises atop his chest where the choker’s thumbs had pressed. He might have thrown up if he hadn’t had a surge of immediate, protective anger. The idea that anybody hurt his brother made him want to go kick someone’s ass and throw them right in jail if possible. Billy wasn’t aware of how his hands were clenching into fists as he took a rather intimidating step towards Eugene. In some better world, he might not have looked so angry, but he couldn’t think clearly in the face of this. The thought that Eugene could have died kept going off in his head on repeat, like a siren in the night.

“Who did it?” he asked, suddenly very afraid of the answer. _What if I don’t know who hurt him? Could I even make a legal case as Shazam? What if it’s someone I_ do _know but it’s the Bryers or somebody else with money and connections? What if it’s an adult- no. No, that’s crazy, nobody other than Jesse likes that past the age of, like, twelve._ “Eugene, I’m not mad at you, but I need to know. You need to – we need to talk. This is really, really not okay.”

“Um I, um, I fell-”

“Pick a better lie than _that_ , dude, seriously,” he cut him off, hating that he had experience with this. “I tried that one when I was eight and it didn’t even work with other kids.”

Eugene took a step back, clutching his nearly empty glass of water. Tremendously increased thirst was a side-effect of the Choking Game, which made it make more sense in the context of Jesse but now was not the time to think about that, not when he was safe and Eugene wasn’t. “I just tried it out with someone once – well, twice, but I don’t like it much and we’re not going to do it again,” he promised, eyes darting inbetween Freddy and Billy frantically. “Nobody made me do anything, I’d tell you if I was being bullied. Freddy, tell him.”

“Uh,” Freddy said, ineloquently, “I – I mean, yeah, you would, but – I think Billy’s got a point? You can’t let anybody choke you, that’s super unsafe, dude.” He put a hand on Billy’s arm, adding in a hiss, “Keep it down! We don’t want to wake up the whole house and have Victor and Rosa ask what we’re doing up, Captain Tassel-Cape!”

“Literally _why_ would you let somebody do that?!” Billy asked, not lowering his voice in the slightest as cold panic continued to seize him. “You could have died!”

“She wouldn’t let me die,” the younger boy protested, squirming under the scrutiny. “Besides, we decided we’re not gonna do this again anyway, we’re _not_ , so-”

Paranoia, irrational and uncalled for, compelled Billy to ask, “What else did you do?”

A lot of the color drained from Eugene’s face, but the real tell was how he tugged down his shirt over the small bump, barely visible under the sweatpants and low lighting, of what was undeniably a visible hard-on. Billy forgot how to breathe. He wanted to scream. In an instant he felt like he was nine all over again, small and defenseless and lost, hopelessly lost in the face of reality. All he could think was that he was dirty for even noticing that on Eugene, dirty, filthy, a pervert, a bad person, a terrible brother and a failure as a superhero _but_. But, he could deal with how much he hated himself later. He could deal with how awful he continued to be on a daily basis with Malloy, with Freddy, with conversations that examined his own thoughts like a forensics team might go over the scene of a fatal accident. Right now, the only thing that mattered was helping Eugene. It was too late for Billy, probably, maybe, but it wasn’t too late for him.

So he did something for his brother he wished somebody had done for him when he was younger, and cleared his throat and yelled.

“Rosa! Victor! I need you guys down here!”


	19. Hope/Prayer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lina means no harm. Eugene hurts. Billy finds the strength to fight for others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Billy's self esteem isn't the best here but by God are we making progress. Also, I'm back to updating on schedule. Turns out bronchitis is a great motivator to keep me up until I finish chapters.

_(In the aftermath, Lina curled up against him, strong, protective arms locking around his sides.  
_

_Spring was slow to come to this part of the state, the air still sharp with the sting of winter cold but bright with cloudless skies like summer. His neck hurt. He was a little sweaty, which he wasn’t sure made sense, since Lina wasn’t. Her hair tickled against his chin and neck; squirming, tried to stifle a chuckle. For some reason, she wasn’t ticklish at all, so there was no way to start a tickle fight and have any chance of winning. It didn’t matter. He was too tired to play around with her or tease her anymore. When he got back into superhero form, he hoped he’d be able to fly home alright._

_“Eugene?” she asked, yawning, “you’re not going to sleep, are you? I can’t carry you home.”_

_“It’d be fun to try,” he murmured, and she laughed, quietly. “After all the flying, you owe me a piggyback ride.”_

_“That’s fair. Um, Eugene?” Lina chewed at her bottom lip nervously, glancing at him through a curtain of her undone, silky black hair. Somehow, she didn’t look as perfectly confident as she normally did, and it was kind of cool that they could just hang out and she didn’t feel the need to be all tough._

_“Yeah?” he yawned, groaning as she tugged him into a sitting position._

_“You know we can’t tell anybody, right? ‘Cause you’d get in trouble, more than I would, actually. Everybody’s harder on guys about this. And I don’t – I really like you, and I don’t want you to get into trouble, so…” she bopped his nose with a finger, in lieu of a kiss. “No telling.”_

_“No telling,” Eugene agreed. He bopped her nose back, snorting as she crinkled her brow in annoyance at him. “And I won’t tell anybody you’re not always all badass all the time.”_

_She rolled her eyes and handed him his jacket, shaking her head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m always cool, and so are you.”_

_He smiled at her, and for once, he didn’t argue.)_

 

* * *

 

 

Freddy had never seen Billy take charge this way outside of that night at the carnival with Sivana.

“Freddy, go keep Pedro and Darla in their rooms,” he said, not asking but ordering. “Eugene, sit down. I’m gonna mix up some salt water for you, okay? Gargling that will help a lot more with the pain than plain water will. You’re not in trouble, we just gotta have a talk, okay? It’s all going to be cool, but first we need to get you fixed up.”

Eugene bit his lip, small and uncertain, afraid, but convinced by the look on Billy’s face that he wasn’t actually in trouble. Billy waved Freddy off, and got to work making something for Eugene to gargle. The warm water tickled unpleasantly in his throat. Still, it felt better, and when Rosa and Victor appeared, flustered and wide awake, he felt like he could at least talk without his throat burning. Before their parents could ask what was wrong or Eugene could make a run for it, Billy yanked down the high neck on his brother’s pajama top. Only in his reflection in the windows could the younger boy get a semi-decent look at the damage. Confusingly, he felt that same heat pass through him at the memory of Lina’s pretty face, her hands on his neck, wondering if that was what love felt like. It was supposed to be sudden in all those princess movies – was that what that was?

Rosa and Victor’s reactions said ‘no’. His foster mother had gone very still, almost uncomprehending before the connection between the bruises and where they were got made in her head. In an instant, she was kneeling beside Eugene, gently reaching out to ruffle his hair, hands hesitant as they ghosted over the worst of the damage. Her eyes were warm with that bottomless love she seemed to always have for all of them, not so much as a hint of anger in her for being woken up at this hour. Still, Eugene found himself taking a step back. Rosa’s eyes were a deep brown, black, really, like Lina’s. He couldn’t understand why that made it weird, but he understood the look on her face to be hurt and confused.

“Hey, it’s alright,” Victor reassured him gently, casting a worried glance Billy’s way, not sure who to ask about what was going on first. “Come on, buddy, let’s get some ice on those before they get any worse.”

Eugene turned to Billy, who nodded. “That’ll work, dude. Ice is better than heat for that, trust me. Don’t worry, we’ve got this.” _We. What a weird word,_ he thought, but didn’t say. “Rosa, can we talk for a second? I – it’ll be easier for Eugene if he doesn’t have to say it.” _God knows I couldn’t say it at his age._

When his brother had been led into the other room by Victor in search of a First Aid Kit, the sound of the other kids was negligible and he’d checked around the corner, Billy turned to his foster mother. She was always the most expressive out of his foster family, radiating a mix now of panic and dread. Never one for hugs, since nobody he’d known had ever been into that, he put a hand on her shoulder instead, aiming for some level of reassurance. _I should be freaking out. I’m probably_ going _to freak out. But right now, somebody needs to tell her what’s going on and Eugene shouldn’t have to do that when it’s such a big deal and such a new thing. Deep breath, Batson. You got this._

“Somebody _touched_ Eugene after playing the Choking Game. I don’t know who – he said ‘her’, but I don’t know who his friends are, just that he’s really embarrassed and super confused, and kind of scared.” He found himself looking out the window, then at his own reflection in it. “It’s always scary at that age, ‘cause it’s like, ‘what am I even feeling?’ and ‘am I bad for feeling it?’ and it’s all new. Newness always kind of sucks. But… I mean, I’m not speaking from experience or anything, but I think it’ll suck a lot better if he’s not alone.”

His hands shook a little. Billy had that same feeling he’d had in Malloy’s office so many times, that mixture of plummeting anxiety and rising tension, old wounds ripped open in order to heal. He knew that suspicion should fall on him since he was the kid here with all the knowledge about the Choking Game and the pervert who noticed that Eugene had a hard on to begin with. None of this was what a good person would know or notice or say. He wasn’t some morally pure and righteous superhero out of one of Freddy’s Golden Age comics, not a Captain America who was wholesome and fearless or a reincarnated god like Marvel Boy or even just The Angel from those really early comics with no powers and a great knack for solving mysteries. He was Billy Batson, chronic fuck-up, repeat runaway, Jesse Dobrescu’s bombshell boyfriend Bill. None of those things were awesome.

They were good enough, if he could keep history from repeating itself.

Rosa pulled him close suddenly. She wrapped her arms around him, pressing a kiss to the top of his head lovingly though her eyes were full of tears. “Oh, Billy… I’m so glad you’re here.” He opened his mouth to ask what she meant, and she continued, “I wouldn’t know how to help him, not really. I don’t know about this sort of abuse, not in detail, and I… I know you aren’t religious, but I thank God every day that you’re here. You helped me find the strength to learn more about this, and you’re helping your brother stay safe, and I’m so, so glad you called out for us tonight.”

He couldn’t speak, too choked up with tears to form words as she stepped back and smoothed out his hair, smiling through her own tears at him. No foster parent had ever told him something that profound with that level of certainty.

“I love you,” she told him. He didn’t doubt it for a second. “I love you, and we will find a way to make this right, together.”

 

* * *

 

 

They could get through this, together.

They could be there for Eugene through the weirdness that was going to ensue. He’d probably have strange dreams, inappropriate hard ons, maybe some questions about why what he did was wrong, and that was going to be hard to deal with. Thinking about it made Billy queasy, a sense of dread settling over him like a heavy weight, but he wasn’t the only one holding that weight up. Freddy was going to be there to help keep him from getting too freaked out. Rosa and Victor would help talk to Eugene. He wasn’t alone in trying to make sure this didn’t spiral out of control. That fact was so unreal it seemed almost dizzying. He wasn’t alone. Victor, Rosa, Freddy, Mary when he got a chance to talk to her, even Darla and Pedro’s eccentric forms of help, it was all there in full force, and he found that in spite of himself, he believed that things really would be alright.

Rosa was right, he wasn’t religious. Billy didn’t know the first thing about any religion beyond what he gleamed from TV and other kids, and he really doubted God sent someone as nice as Rosa someone as frustrating as him. But Salem had told him once that prayer was hope, felt so intensely and specifically that it went beyond a thought to become a feeling to become a request to life itself. It was a scream into the darkness, a plea for things to let up. That was the kind of prayer he had about Eugene, hope against all reason, against all the likely ways this could end up not being enough, hope that told psychology to go fuck itself because he wanted his brother to be okay. It was the same burning feeling he’d felt when he confronted Sivana, irrationally hoping until it burned away the hurt and fear in him.

“What’re you doing?” Freddy asked sleepily from his bed. Billy had talked to Victor and Rosa for an hour, going over everything he could think of that was relevant, and while his stomach churned and he broke out in an anxious sweat early on, he hadn’t thrown up, a minor miracle.

“Praying,” he said honestly, not bothering to explain why he lingered in the doorway beyond that. “Go back to sleep, Blue Squeaker, we’ve got school tomorrow.”

Everything Malloy said about being safe enough to break down must have been true, because Billy crawled into bed beside Freddy and let himself cry a little, not sure why he was tearing up, reveling in having somebody else there. Everything was awful. Everything would be okay. He could actually believe that, now, actually picture a future that wasn’t atrocious from start to finish. Could he fix himself? He doubted it. He’d basically checked Eugene out and that was undeniably wrong. But maybe it was okay to be a little bit broken, a little bit perverted, if it meant that he could help other people. If he could keep his brother safe then he’d make his peace with being a freak. If Freddy didn’t mind his creepily wandering eye then they’d be able to get through this. Maybe Freddy really was in love with him; love forgave a lot of things, after all, even something as sick as looking at a kid’s crotch.

He was surprised that he didn’t have worse nightmares that night, just a mental mix of all the times he’d come close to telling someone else about what was going on when he was younger. Flashes of the people who should have known better went through his mind. They had failed him. He wouldn’t fail Eugene. Billy didn’t have to be Shazam to make sure Eugene was alright, he could be a big brother without having to invoke being the ‘Champion’ or whatever to make it sound like he had a point. Little Billy Batson had never had a point in his life. If he did, nobody ever acknowledged it. This time, though, it was different. This time, everything was going to be the way it should have been for him.

When he woke up, he didn’t feel sick or like he needed to go brush the taste of Jesse out of his mouth. Billy laid there for a few minutes with Freddy beside him, listening to him breathe. Freddy hadn’t gotten fed up with his bullshit yet. He could trust him to be there for Eugene, trust the whole family to pull through for his youngest brother, and that thought filled him up with a sort of dissonant serenity, a calm in the eye of the storm.

 _Everything right is wrong again_ , one of Pedro’s songs had said, but one of Darla’s that she’d put on his iPod had said, _it still kills me that I can’t change things, but I’m still dreaming, I’ll rewrite the ending_.

He put a call in to Dr. Malloy immediately when he woke up. He needed advice and he knew who to get it from, now.

He had a feeling he was about to get used to praying.


	20. Plaything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy makes a decision. Malloy earns his salary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick update as I attempt to resume a normal schedule for this fic.

Billy had expected the low he hit to be an anxiety attack. That was how this sort of thing worked. It sucked, and he wasn’t exactly thrilled about it, but he was mostly sure he could handle it.

The bleak depression that settled over him was hard to puzzle out. He couldn’t really put it into words, put the sense everything was wrong into perspective. Dr. Malloy told him to write down his thoughts, and Billy _had_ been doing that. He couldn’t come up with anything to write, just doodled long shadows that formed the shapes of hands all around the borders of the page and tried to figure out what he had or hadn’t done to prevent this from happening. Surely Billy of all people should have seen that something was wrong. Of all of them, he’d easily been in the most foster homes – he’d actually been in more than Darla, Pedro and Eugene combined – so he should have been able to catch this before it got to this point, right? He was the closest thing to an expert in messed up kids that there was here. 

“I know it’s too late for me, I get that,” he ranted at Malloy, pacing, unable to sit still, “but I was supposed to be smart, at least ‘street smart’ or whatever. I was – I was supposed to try to keep this from happening! I tried that at other foster homes and I used to be so good at getting kids away from other kids who might be dangerous, it was the one thing I did that wasn’t shitty to people. I mean, it was, because kids always kind of hated me for it, but that didn’t matter ‘cause I was gone before them hating me could mean anything.”

Malloy watched him with a thoughtful expression. He was the one person Billy knew who could recall conversations word-for-word, and it was incredibly gratifying to have someone to rant to who he knew actually cared, was putting in effort to make this suck less. Billy paused in his pacing to stand Malloy’s desk, reaching out for the weirdly big-headed doll Malloy’s daughter had given him. She’d given it to him under the logic that it looked like him, with its’ dark skin and too-light blond hair, and it struck Billy then that until Freddy, he hadn’t ever had action figures. Other toys? He couldn’t remember that outside the context of the tiny one-room apartment he’d shared with his mother. The fourteen year old shot his therapist a questioning look, and when he nodded, Billy picked the toy up. Belatedly it hit him that he wasn’t actually sure how kids were supposed to play with stuff like this.

“I never had, like, friends my own age or whatever. I didn’t get to play around with toys and binge video games and all that. But Eugene has all that, so I guess… I guess I didn’t think somebody with good parents and all this normal stuff, this sort of not-fucked-up childhood stuff, was gonna have this happen to him. Everything seemed safe.”

“Abuse doesn’t only occur in certain places,” Malloy told him, not unkindly. “I have had patients from some of the wealthiest parts of Philadelphia and the poorest alike. Safety is more complicated than parents being present and having age-appropriate toys and interests. And in that spirit, I’d like you to consider the idea that Eugene’s safety isn’t your responsibility and yours alone.”

“Victor and Rosa never had to deal with this kind of thing before, dude. They couldn’t have known what to look for. Darla’s a cinnamon roll, Pedro’s pretty introverted, Freddy’s got zero experience with any of this outside of talking to me, and Mary-”

“Has given me expressly written legal permission to tell you she’s actually got more experience with this than you’d think, and _she_ missed the signs, too. Do you blame her?”

Billy frowned, pulling the string that changed the doll’s eye color. He didn’t want to think of anyone hurting Mary. She was trying so hard to be a good big sister and chase her college dreams, and he just couldn’t imagine anyone laying an unkind hand on her. How had he missed _those_ signs? If she’d given Malloy permission to mention it, then that meant she hadn’t missed them in him. She was probably going to be better at the superhero thing in the long run, if she could read that much into his breakdowns and actions even with how little they saw each other as she ramped up her studying for end of year exams months in advance. But to Malloy’s point, did he blame her for not seeing in Eugene whatever she’d managed to see in Billy himself? The answer was automatic.

“Well, no. I mean, I don’t – I don’t know what Mary’s deal is? She’s really focused on the future, her girlfriend, and planning my birthday party behind my back – well, mostly behind my back – so she’s got excuses, you know?”

“And you think you don’t?” He could see Billy about to answer that, so he forged ahead with, “You don’t think trying to fix your mental health, get your GPA up, adjust to having a stable family for the first time in your life and balance out past trauma with the uncertainty of a current romantic relationship is a comparable workload?”

He shrugged helplessly, fiddling with the doll’s joints in lieu of looking at him. “I still think I should have figured it out. And even if you explain why I shouldn’t have, that doesn’t make it hurt any less that I totally let Eugene down.”

Malloy smiled sadly. “Mary said the same thing. I think that’s part of being an older sibling, though, and perhaps you need to look at what you have in common with people who have moved forward with their lives and with recovery rather than thinking of yourself as being beyond help.”

“Are we just going to walk right on past the fact I looked at a little kid’s crotch? That’s pretty messed up, and I say that as somebody who’s really, really bad at identifying when something’s fucked.”

“I say this as someone whose _job_ it is to identify when things are, to use your word, fucked: it’s a pretty natural response to trauma. Victims of robberies assume strangers going into a neighbor’s house are robbing them. Victims of domestic abuse see bruises on someone and picture the worst possible scenario. You went through a trauma, so now you’re doing your equivalent of looking at houses for signs of a break-in or examining people for signs of being beaten up. That isn’t the same thing as checking someone out and it’s not the same thing as being interested in him and, again, it is literally my job to tell you if I think otherwise.”

Billy finally managed to look at him. “If you thought I was… if I ever seemed like I was going to hurt someone, you’d stop me, right?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve done that before? Even with people who were your patients?”

“Multiple times, yes. You wouldn’t even be the first person this year.” Seeing the way Billy nodded, as if he needed to know there was someone there to stop him, he frowned. “I don’t think you’re going to hurt anyone, Billy. Why would you assume that about yourself, or want me to confirm this with you?”

“’Cause Eugene – I sort of listened in on him talking to Victor, and he said the friend of his he… the girl he was with, she’s eleven. So that’s basically like me and Freddy, you know? Not that much of a gap, close friends, sneaking around with each other, it’s…” He trailed off, pulling the string on the doll again. The doll’s eyes could switch between four colors, and he found himself disliking both the grey and dark-brown eye-chips, with their reflective surfaces that showed him his own guilty face.

Billy had never asked Jesse, but he’d always assumed someone had taught him how to do all the things he knew how to do in bed. Nobody just woke up one day with that kind of knowledge. Kids didn’t know that sort of thing unless it was introduced to them. He’d been around enough normal kids in the foster care system to know they were freaks, outliers, exceptions. People didn’t think about the concept of sex outside of vague ideas and fleeting feelings until they were teenagers, normally. Whatever had happened to make that different for Jesse was a mystery up there with why he crashed so hard when he got depressed; he didn’t want to go into it, would get angry and defensive and even violent to make anyone who asked shut up. Some part of him had always assumed it was an adult who’d messed around with him. Now, he had to wonder if it was another kid.

He felt dirty, contaminated, and contagious. He could ruin somebody else like Jesse ruined him. He’d already had dreams about Freddy that he barely dared mention to his therapist outside of the vaguest descriptions possible. That Freddy was being so patient with him sort of made it worse. If anyone didn’t deserve a boyfriend who jerked off to hearing him moan in his sleep, it was Freddy, who had the common courtesy not to jerk off at all, damnit. If he were remotely hormonal in a way Billy could tell himself was somewhat like his own weird relationship with the concept, then maybe he wouldn’t feel so terrible about it, but Freddy wasn’t like that. He was a good person, the kind that didn’t look at other kids the way Billy did. Sooner or later he was either going to leave or Billy would get too handsy with him and screw him up, too.

_(Naiana had called Salem a pedophile. He’d felt it, too, felt the guilt so keenly he was obviously punishing himself. He wouldn’t, couldn’t eat, couldn’t let himself enjoy anything when he felt like he’d taken advantage of him. There was some inner conflict going on in him that he didn’t know how to deal with; he wanted to pull Billy close and talk about love and try to make it okay with that. The word love reminded Billy of too many things that he didn’t want to think about – Jesse, Wyatt, being outed to an entire middle school by someone he trusted as a ‘fuck you’, his mom, too much. He withdrew from Salem and watched the light go out in his eyes more and more every day._

_Billy wanted to scream at him that it wasn’t his fault, that he was a good guy with a good heart who got talked into something. If anyone was the predator here it was him, but saying that would have just started a fight where Salem tried to argue that Billy was a good person._

_He wasn’t. He wasn’t, and everyone was safer without him around.)_

“It’s really hard, not knowing how to be permanent for somebody. Even with Jesse, I always had breaks. I could always walk away from everything, everyone, when I messed up. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I don’t know what I’m not supposed to do, either, actually. I’m not even sure what’s freaking me out anymore.”

He finally set the toy back down on Dr. Malloy’s desk, feeling a complete detachment from whatever childlike impulse the other patients he had felt towards the hunk of plastic. Playing was as far removed from his life as sticking around was. But _. But_. He remembered Salem’s face and he resolved not to do that to Freddy – either part of it. He wouldn’t touch him, and he wouldn’t walk away from him. Maybe Freddy would be safer if he walked away, but it would hurt him, possibly do damage that couldn’t be undone, and it’d only make Freddy think his skewed view of his disability was right. It was probably too late to undo what he’d done to Salem. It was definitely too late to reconfigure whatever was broken in his thought patterns that brought everything back to sex, after years of having that way of thinking reinforced. If he thought he could fix more than he’d break by leaving he would’ve been halfway across the city already. Leaving behind the only family he’d ever had for Freddy’s sake was something he could handle.

Staying for him was a lot harder, and maybe he’d screw it all up in the end, he didn’t know for sure.

But he knew from Jesse leaving him that it screwed someone up a lot more to realize they weren’t worth fighting for in the end.


	21. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Victor talks with Eugene. The definition of assault gets blurry. A potentially unwise decision is made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapters are all going to be super focused on Billy and Freddy. This was made its' own chapter because it isn't focused on them and doesn't flow with the rest of what I have planned for the next chapters. I hope this brief aside is still engaging as a chapter in and of itself.
> 
> TW/CW for discussion of underage sexuality.

Victor didn’t really know how to have this conversation with Eugene.

When Victor had been a foster kid, he’d seen some messed up things – resources stretched too thin, leading to a lack of food, overcrowding to the point adult supervision was essentially a joke, racism from other kids, and bullying that escalated to fights. He knew what chaos was and he and Rosa had worked to make a place free of all of that for the kids they fostered. It wasn’t a perfect home, but it was a stable one, with as much of a normal schedule and set up as they could manage. Over the years they’d fostered twenty kids for various lengths of time, and even ones who’d stayed briefly always benefitted from the relative quiet and family dinners. He’d thought he’d seen everything. He’d certainly heard everything, had arranged therapy for more than one kid, had tried to make it clear he was there for his kids. Now, though, he had to actively approach someone fresh off of a trauma.

The whole thing was uncharted waters for him. It didn’t help that Eugene didn’t seem to know how to feel about what happened. He was in what Billy called the ‘everything’s fine, everything’s normal’ stage, where any real fallout hadn’t really hit yet. Dr. Malloy told him the brain took time to process something as new as the abstract concept of sexual contact was to Eugene. They both told him to talk to Eugene and not wait for him to come to Victor, which was an intimidating prospect, but something Victor nonetheless sat down to do.

“Buddy,” he started, unsure of where to begin this, “I know you think Rosa and I are mad at you, but we’re not. You aren’t in trouble.”

Eugene fiddled with his Nintendo 3DS. Making eye contact was never his strong suit, and he tended to have an easier time with prolonged conversations while multitasking. “Is Billy mad at me?”

“No. He’s mad at whoever hurt you, not you.” He watched Eugene’s face for a reaction, noting right away how his son frowned and pursed his lips. “What?” 

“She didn’t hurt me. I mean, kind of, but I was the one who wanted to play the game with her friends, so… it’s not fair to be mad at her.” He stretched and cracked his ankles, a nervous habit that gave more away than his face.

Victor picked his words carefully. _How do I even ask this?_ “And what about the rest of it?”

His son turned red and hit pause on his game, looking away. Really, there was never an age where talking to your parents about this wasn’t humiliating, and Victor felt sorry for him on more than one level. There was a lot of awkwardness inherent in this discussion. That was why he’d waited until he could sit Eugene down alone in his and Rosa’s room so none of the other kids would eavesdrop. This didn’t need an audience. Eugene looked as young as he was, in one of Freddy’s old Batman shirts that swallowed him up and the coat he’d come home with that day. Apparently when they were getting dressed and heading home, Eugene and the girl he’d been with had accidentally exchanged coats, and her black trenchcoat was now a staple of his wardrobe. On anyone else it would have been cute. Under other circumstances it would be adorable to see his youngest son walk around with his maybe-friend-maybe-girlfriend’s coat. Under the current circumstances, it was just uncomfortable.

“I don’t… I don’t really want to talk about that stuff,” Eugene managed, face now a painful shade of red. “It’s weird. But, um, it didn’t… I, um… it didn’t hurt, I don’t know if that’s what… you were asking… can I just get grounded already please?”

In spite of himself, he smiled for a second. “I’m not going to ground you. This isn’t any fun for me either, kiddo. But I talk to Mary about her girlfriend and Pedro about those two crushes we’re all pretending he doesn’t have, so it’s not fair if I don’t talk to you about yours.”

“Still gross,” he muttered. Victor nodded, conceding the point. “But we didn’t do anything that hurt and she doesn’t want me to play the Choking Game anymore. I cry and that scares her a lot, so we’re going to try tree climbing next time.”

“Please don’t. You can still get really hurt climbing trees, and Rosa and I wouldn’t know where you were or what happened. That’s why we’re so worried about this. We didn’t even know you were hanging out with this girl, you won’t tell us about her, and you got hurt. Billy told me kids have died doing what you did. Eugene, I would never forgive myself if something happened to you and I wasn’t there for you. It makes me feel like a bad dad if you feel like you can’t come talk to me, too.”

“…I didn’t want you to tell me not to hang out with her. She’s kind of – she does stuff that’s kind of dangerous, but that’s not her fault. She doesn’t have nice parents and her friends are pretty mean. But she listens to me talk about video games and lets me teach her them and we go ghost hunting, and she isn’t a jerk, she just acts like it sometimes to get people to stop teasing her.” He peered up at Victor, hesitant and hopeful. Victor nodded. He understood from his own life how the foster care system could accidentally bring out the worst in people. “Her dad was like my mom. I never met anybody like that before. I… she says it’s not my fault I couldn’t stay with my mom, ‘cause Lina was older than me when she got taken away from her parents and she still couldn’t make things work.”

Victor bit back a comment on that. Eugene’s mother should never have been his responsibility in the first place. Trying to take care of a mentally ill parent would have been difficult if he’d been an adult, let alone a child, let alone a child trying to deal with the other parent walking out on the family. He’d coped through copious amounts of video games and sheer determination. Although he couldn’t prove it, he was pretty sure Eugene had hacked the school system’s computers in order to cover up for his multiple unexplained absences as he tried to balance keeping his mother from slipping further into insanity, helping her with her work and keeping up with his own schoolwork. Anyone with eyes in their head could see that he’d done an exceptional job of making sure his mother was okay; there were trained mental health professionals that didn’t know as much as he did about calming people dealing with hallucinations and night terrors as Eugene knew by the time he was nine and Social Services finally intervened. Victor had tried to explain to him before that nobody blamed him for not being able to sustain that. He’d driven Eugene upstate to the facility his mother was in more than once, though, and knew from that experience that Eugene truly blamed himself for everything from her mental health to having not been to maintain the house.

Right now was not the time to get into that. He wanted to, but he knew better than to go there when Eugene was obviously not feeling great to begin with. “I’m glad you found someone who gets what you went through. I know that’s hard to find, and I know it’s not easy being a foster kid. If you say she’s a good person then I believe you. But you have to understand that if you don’t talk to me, then I can’t understand what’s going on. I don’t know what you two did. I don’t know anything about her. How can I be fair or be a good dad if I don’t know the facts?”

“You’re a good dad.” He took a deep breath, then shut the 3DS and set it aside. “I really like her, a lot. More than I thought I could like anybody, and I like playing with her hair and hugging her and holding hands. She likes me too. We… she… um, she put her hand…” Eugene gestured to his crotch, face flushed. “Then she did something and it felt good, and I did the same for her, and it was really nice. It wasn’t bad. Nothing hurt. Lina would never hurt me.”

“That’s good,” Victor managed, fighting off a wave of rising alarm. _Why does she know how to do things like that if she’s his age – oh. Oh._ He felt cold, suddenly, despite the warmth of the spring day. “I’m glad it didn’t hurt. But I don’t want you to do it again, okay? You’re too young, and both of you could get in a lot of trouble. It’s better if you wait until you’re older.”

That was probably not the right thing to say. There was so much more to it that he needed to go over, from what might be going on in this poor girl’s life to explaining more about why it wasn’t okay. He knew he needed to really educate his son about this before things escalated any further, and Victor was tempted to keep talking, but Eugene looked afraid. He didn’t want to be in trouble. He didn’t want to not be able to talk to his friend or be a bad person, and Victor refused to keep pushing him for details when this was obviously so hard on him.

“Okay,” Eugene conceded, “I think she’ll be okay with that. If she promises not to do that again, can I still hang out with her?”

_(“Can you keep a secret, Freddy?” Billy was saying in a low tone, making Victor pause by the door and stay very still to head the next words. “When I couldn’t see Jesse anymore, I kind of thought about dying. I didn’t want to kill myself, but I wanted to get into an accident or something.”_

_“Holy shit, dude,” Freddy said, and there was the sound of footsteps as he moved to Billy’s side. “You’re okay now, though, right?”_

_“I am, now that I have you. What else do I need, you know? When I was alone, though…” He sniffled, before the sound was muffled by what Victor presumed was an epic hug from Freddy.)_

“Yes. Supervised, but – yes, you can.”


	22. Cover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Truth comes to the surface. Billy feels contradicting things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for one brief mention of Jesse/Billy sex in the past, which I can totally understand being uncomfortable for people to read.

The next panic attack hit him first thing in the morning, and was only conquered through sheer shock. 

He’d been having more good days than bad, lately, and that was what made it so jarring. His dreams were stabilizing, his worries about Victor and Rosa throwing him out were sinking to manageable levels, and he and Freddy had avoided any too-weird or panic inducing conversations for a while. Billy’s grades were actually decent, now that he was in a mostly stable environment. Trying to be a superhero and juggle school was a balancing act he was surprisingly good at, now that he had people to talk to who could help him balance it. Inbetween Pedro helping him get a decent music library together on the computer, Mary tutoring him in math and Darla teaching him the ways of anime (which had more superheroes in it than Billy had previously thought), he found he wasn’t having the usual low points in his mood that he used to. That he’d managed to deal with happened to Eugene with only a few bouts of waking up in a cold sweat and a lot of hanging out with to make sure he was okay was a miracle. He was getting through something he’d fully expected to break him and for once, he got the sense things wouldn’t devolve into a total clusterfuck just because something bad had happened.

Then he heard Freddy talking to Mary one morning, early enough that Billy was usually never awake at this hour, and he heard the name, the full name he’d never given Freddy, that Freddy absolutely shouldn’t have known.

Jesse Alexandru Dobrescu.

All at once, his throat closed up. He could smell the sharp, acidic burn that always had crept into the air after he was choked, too harsh to endure, too omnipresent to avoid. His breathing stalled as he tried to process the world-altering information he’d been handed. His boyfriend knew who’d hurt him. Hell, Freddy might know everything, might know about Jesse violently assaulting Wyatt for the high crime of hurting Billy, might know how Billy had lied and covered for him. The sense of being exposed suddenly washed over him, making him want to grab his jacket and sweatshirt to hide under. Billy had to blink repeatedly to keep the world in focus. The wall was cool against his back as he leaned against it, listening to Freddy’s voice, Mary’s angry whispers and his own internal panic. A sense of betrayal rose up in him, unexpected and raw.

Freddy hadn’t asked him, he’d gone around his back to look into it. He hadn’t asked Billy if that was okay, and it wasn’t, it really wasn’t because it was all too much to know that Freddy knew. He was going to tell him everything in time. His plan, insomuch as there was one, was to tell his boyfriend bits and pieces whenever he could manage to do so and they’d figure out what that meant for them from there. At no point did he ever think this was a possibility, that his boyfriend might make the decision that he wanted to know everything regardless of what Billy wanted to tell him. He wanted to cry. He wanted to fall down on the floor and sob like a broken, lost little kid. That the tears wouldn’t come was a testimony to how messed up this all was.

Billy lingered silently just out of sight of his sister and boyfriend, trying to listen. He couldn’t. There was too much noise in his head, echoes of Jesse’s laughter when they stole the car, his sobs when he found out his parents were dead, his breathing in Billy’s ear as he fucked him and murmured sweet, silken compliments into his ear, nonstop praise that confused him as much as it comforted him in the moment. Billy felt more than heard his own breathing get louder as he leaned completely against the wall, unable to trust his knees to keep him upright. _Leave_ , some part of him whispered. _Leave before they get rid of you. Freddy's going to find out about all the minor and not remotely minor crimes you helped Jesse cover up and he's going to realize he can do better. It'll be easier if you just bail out now.  
_

Billy eyed the back door. He could grab his money from upstairs, make a run for the Social Services Office, get there in forty minutes. He knew how to lose someone chasing him. He could definitely outrun Freddy, and Freddy probably wouldn’t risk going superhero in broad daylight, would he? He swallowed, again and again, trying to make his throat understand no one was choking him. The shadows of the house seemed to shift, grow, morph into clawlike wraiths all around him. Despite the warmth of the house, he felt cold creep back into him, the way it always had when he and Jesse were at their most dangerous and alone on winter nights where the streets of Philadelphia were empty and it felt like they were the only people left on Earth. In those nights, the pain of not having his mother around, the loneliness of always moving around, none of it could follow him or matter. All that mattered was Jesse, laughing and talking about everything and nothing with that near manic passion of his, warming him from within in a way that defied the winter cold. He’d hauled Billy out of his own downward spiral more than once.

These days, he’d been counting on Freddy to do that, but what was he supposed to do when Freddy was the one sending him into that spiral? _I wish Jesse were here_ , he thought, the thought making his insides twist. _Wait, do I? I think I do. I knew what to expect with him. I thought I did with Freddy, but… damnit, Freeman, you couldn’t wait for me to talk about this shit on my own time? Shit. Breathe, Batson. Listen. He’s not going to be honest with you if he knows you’re here – this is your one chance._

“This is _not okay_ , Freddy,” Mary was saying, sounding vaguely disturbed. “You need to tell Billy, Rosa and Victor and in that order, and then you need to _go to the police-_ ”

“With what? I don’t have any evidence, I can’t just walk up to them and try to get some guy arrested! Plus, Billy would hate me, he, like, he still kind of cares about Jesse, it’s weird.”

Mary sighed, aggravated. “Not to mention you totally violated his privacy? You can’t just go around stalking people’s exes, oh my God!”

“Eugene did that more than me-”

“He’s a kid! He went to Narberth to try to help because he doesn’t know any better, but _you should!_ How was this supposed to help anything?”

“It was, I dunno, I,” Freddy was getting flustered now, struggling to form sentences. “It was supposed to make sure Jesse stayed in Narberth and Billy stayed where he couldn’t hurt him? And if Eugene’s hacking skills turned up proof something was wrong then we were gonna go to the police and stuff.”

 _Jesse’s in Narberth._ The world went out of focus. He wasn’t off to some far-flung corner of the world like Billy had always assumed he would be, hadn’t run off to one of the places he’d always talked about far out of state. He was a night-long bus ride away. _That means he’s safe, he’s okay. With all the crime in Philly, I thought – but he’s okay._ For all that Jesse had put him through, Billy found he couldn’t really find any hatred for him, and was overwhelmed by a mixture of relief and a desire to go to him, immediately. He could find him. He’d learned how to track people down with a lot less to go on than this, after all. The desire to go to him sent guilt spiking through Billy, confused him with its’ intensity. No one should want to go find someone who’d done the things to him that Jesse had. That was crazy. Billy was crazy.

Then again, he sometimes still had dreams where he went to his mom and talked her into at least sitting down and having one decent conversation with him. He wasn’t as over everything as he liked to think he was. That was a hell of a revelation to have when he’d been out of bed for all of ten minutes. It was too early in the morning for this; he just wanted to crawl back into bed and lay there until it all made sense. Maybe he should call Malloy? But Malloy would want to talk about things Billy wasn’t sure he could admit to anyone else yet and besides, he wasn’t sure he could manage to say anything at all right now.

_(Jesse smelled like cigarettes and tasted like alcohol and defeat, stepping back from Billy after what would later prove to be their last kiss. His eyes were storm-cloud colored and as distant as the sky. Billy couldn’t reach him anymore, not when he got into this kind of rock-bottom low, and he was tired of trying. Life was such a constant struggle and he was too young or too weak to keep up with it._

_“I’m gonna do you a favor, Bill. You’ll get it, one day. I wish it’d all shaken out differently. You know I never meant to hurt you, right? You know I love you? You’re the only thing I love.”_

_Billy hadn’t answered, stepping back and trying to scrub the alcohol aftertaste out of his mouth, but he didn’t miss the way Jesse hung his head at Billy’s silence. He swallowed, nodded to himself, and leaned over to give him a kiss on the top of his head, affectionate and almost chaste._

_He left the next day.)_

When Freddy poked his head around the door, Billy was struggling to stay upright. Fury was starting to bleed in through the anxiety, both anger at Freddy for lying to him and anger at himself for not having said something, anything to Jesse before he left. He knew his sort-of-ex boyfriend had suicidal tendencies and he’d said nothing to make him feel better and yes, he was alive, but he could have easily not have been. _I messed up. Freddy messed up. Everything here is breaking down, every time I think it’s finally going to stop being chaotic it just…_

“How much do you know?” he asked Freddy, point-blank, grateful he hadn’t eaten and thus he couldn’t be sick. “And why didn’t you ask me before you went looking up my ex? That’s a dick move and a supervillain move, dude.”

Mary appeared behind Freddy, looking between them worriedly. “Billy, Freddy didn’t want to make you sick or freak you out – are you okay?”

He wanted to throw himself into traffic. He wanted to hit something until it broke or it hurt. He wanted this anxious feeling out of him, wanted it to stop eating away at him and snatching his breath out of his chest, wanted everything to stop. He was tired. He was endlessly, painfully awake. His eyes burned into Freddy’s, accusatory and betrayed.

“How much do you know?” he repeated, a broken record.

“…I know he was in a bunch of foster homes with you, you met him when you were seven and he never got charged with anything,” Freddy said, after a pause, making sure to meet Billy’s eyes. “There isn’t anything graphic or whatever on the files, okay? Nobody knows whatever you’re afraid of them knowing. It’s okay.” Noticing the way Billy exhaled in relief, he added, “I promise, nothing else is in there. I can let you see what Eugene dug up if you want – I just wanted to make sure Mary knew not to let Jesse in if he popped up.”

Billy snorted, tears blurring his vision, though he refused to let them fall. “He won’t. I botched that whole break up thing pretty badly. I know I wouldn’t come back for me if I were him.”

“He doesn’t deserve you,” Freddy told him firmly, reaching for him, and Billy found he couldn’t muster up the strength to pull away from him. He wanted to run, hit the reset button, redo it all, and then Freddy caught his gaze again and he knew he couldn’t. Freddy was worth fighting for, worth staying for, worth trying to work through this for. No matter how mad he was at Freddy, he couldn't bring himself to leave when he saw him how worried he looked. “Come on, breathe with me, okay? Just – we’ll figure something out, together, but first you need to be okay, dude.”

 _I’ve never been okay_ , he thought, but Freddy’s face asked him, _try?_ and he did so, matching his breaths to Freddy’s until he no longer felt the walls caving in, though the phantom feeling of Jesse’s hands on his hips still lingered, an afterimage of a too-perfect dream that was closer to a nightmare when closely examined. He missed him. Knowing he was a short superhero flight away made that come back in full force, the need to find him and find answers and tease him about his stupid love of leather jackets and bad cologne. He wanted to tell Jesse about his new foster family, check in and make sure he was okay, go back to the good parts of what they had. Because there _were_ good parts, highs as well as lows. He hadn't really gone over that in therapy, didn't know how to bring it up, so all he could do was remind himself the good times in his life right now were with Freddy, not with Jesse. _Stay. I need to stay._

“I don’t want to figure something out right now,” he muttered, shutting his eyes. “I’m still really mad at you for this, you asshole.” Massaging his forehead, he took a deep breath and asked, “So Eugene went there to check things out, and that’s where he met the girl who…?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” Mary said, giving Freddy a stern, disappointed look. “Which he needs to tell Victor and Rosa about, immediately, because Eugene won’t. He’s still covering for you, Freddy.”

_(“You covered for me?” Jesse sounded genuinely touched, reaching out to grab Billy’s wrists and haul him in for a hug before he could shrug it off. “Damn, Bill, I… thanks.”_

_He rested his forehead against Jesse’s chest, crinkling his nose at the smell of cigarettes and leather. The sting was familiar. He smelled like home, warm around him and soft murmurs against him. Billy never really knew what to do with these sorts of moments. Raw emotion was hard to deal with for either of them, especially when it involved each other, and this was probably the best they could manage. It was fine by Billy. He didn’t need anything more than this. The cops may have been right to suspect Jesse of hurting Wyatt, they weren’t wrong that he was dangerous, but they would’ve taken Jesse away from him. Who would he have then? Who would he talk to about movies and go on random walks around town with and sneak out at night with? He told himself it was about needing the blond to find his mom, but he knew it was more complicated than that. He needed Jesse on a deeper level._

_What he never asked himself at the time was if Jesse needed something else.)_

“We should get cops involved.” Billy met both of their surprised stares with a surprising amount of steadiness. “Jesse could have been a lot less messed up if somebody ever talked to him, but the only way people like that get help is if they get caught. This girl probably isn’t a bad person, she just needs help. We’re superheroes, right? So we need to get that for her. That’s what heroes do.”

Mary fiddled with her hair, which Shay had put up into yet another weird updo that lasted for days, conflict on her face and old pain in her eyes. “Sometimes that doesn’t help as much as you’d think, Billy. It’d be better to put Jesse in jail.”

“What? Are you serious? Come on, he hasn’t even done anything – for once – and the cops could get this girl away from anyone hurting her, even people we don’t know about. We can’t make sure we get everybody hurting somebody put away, but we can get her. How is this even an argument? He’s not the one who needs help right now, plus he’d get tried as an adult-”

“Guys,” Freddy interjected, loudly, “time out! We all need to take a break, brainstorm, think it over. Also food. We should get food before we superhero.” He turned to Billy, giving him his best please-don’t-be-mad-at-me smile. It worked, damn him. Billy could never resist that dorky, too-big grin. “Apology donuts sound good?”

“Donuts? You stalk my ex and you’re offering me _donuts?_ Bullshit, Freeman, you’re taking me to Waffle House.”


	23. (Trying To) Move On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The past is unclear. The present is confusing. Freddy tries to figure some things out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW/CW for what is essentially sex in the first scene. It's not explicit and it's the grinding that Billy mentioned Jesse engaging in earlier in the story, but practice safe reading. Do not read content that's going to trigger you. I want everybody reading this to know you can yeet right on out of this and I will not, I promise, be offended.

_Jesse pressed his mouth to Billy’s neck, kissing where the nape of his neck stopped, down to his shoulder, lips brushing him lightly, lovingly._

_The nine year old held still, eyes open in the darkness. There was a little light coming in through the blinds on the window, blue-white light that cast long shadows and made odd details pop out. This was the first night Jesse had successfully wrangled Billy out of his pants in bed. The bareness scared him. He could feel the sheets underneath him more vividly than he wanted, Jesse’s pants against his skin, hands grazing his thighs. It wasn’t okay, was it? They really weren’t supposed to be doing this. At the same time, Jesse was keeping his promises to Billy; he didn’t put a hand up his shirt or touch him between his legs. He kept his hands relatively to himself, grabbing Billy’s hips to draw him closer to get something to grind against.  
_

_He groaned, low and throaty. Billy shifted, confused by the fact he didn’t hate this. The blond gave him more kisses, nudging him until he turned his head enough that they could kiss properly, making quietly satisfied sounds all the while._ He really likes it. Do I like it? _He thought he might, hips bucking against Jesse’s grinding involuntarily._ I have to, right? I wouldn’t have done that if I didn’t.

_“’m never gonna leave you,” Jesse told him, so close his lips brushed Billy’s when he spoke. “When we’ve gotten back with our parents, gotten our lives fixed, I’mma use their money to get us our own place. Just us. I’ll take care of you, Bill.”_

_“You already do,” he pointed out, squirming as his – boyfriend? Best friend? – as the only permanent fixture his life gripped his hip hard enough to hurt, shifting motions against him growing faster. “You – you know that – that I’d do anything for you, so – so you can just…”_ Please just get it over with, _he thought, but didn’t say._ Please just stop it already, I don’t think I like this, I don’t want to keep doing this I-

_The older boy bit into Billy’s shoulder to muffle the sound as he finished, hard enough to bruise, white-blonde hair a glowing silver in the dim city lights that crept through the window._

_Afterwards was always the worst and best part simultaneously. He could ignore the heated feeling going on inbetween his legs until it faded, until it stopped being good-bad-weird and he just felt normal again. And in the meantime, Jesse would curl up against him, all soft kisses and murmured praise, long arms locked around him. It was like a hug, something Billy would never normally ask for, except it had to be secret. Shifting in bed, he tried to roll his shoulder in a way to make the soreness where Jesse bit him hurt less. Jesse pressed his lips to the bruise, eyes soft and apologetic. This wasn't the first time he'd done that. Keeping the sound down was necessary to keep anyone from knowing what was going on, not because it was wrong, according to Jesse, but because they'd be separated if they got caught. People wouldn't understand how much they meant to each other._

_“Sorry, Bill. You okay?” His fingers rubbed soothing circles into Billy’s thighs, before he shifted them over so he could lay on his back with Billy against his chest. Billy rested his head against his chest, trying to focus on the heartbeat underneath him and not on anything else. Everything else made his stomach hurt like he was going to be sick._

_“I’m okay,” Billy replied, because like Hell he was going to look like a wuss in front of his best friend. It was over now anyway, for the moment._ Move on, Batson, _he told himself._ _“You know me. Nothing gets to me, dude.”_

_He wasn’t sure which one of them he was trying to convince._

 

* * *

 

 

The Waffle House was a weird place to get nostalgic. 

Being on a rock-bottom low budget and level of mental health, Marilyn Batson had frequented several Waffle Houses in her time. The staff were kind enough to slip her a little extra this or that, kids ate free and there was enough coffee for her to keep a grip on her sanity. For Billy, it was a place he remembered with nothing other than fondness. His mother had laughed and smiled at her friends that worked there, it was warmer than their icy apartment, and there was always something going on there. Spontaneous singing along to the jukebox, homeless men coming in to ask for whatever couldn’t be sold, the time a dog came in and Billy fed him bacon, two or three kindly people coming up to tell Marilyn where she could get some help financially or otherwise – he had the rosiest view of the dingy franchise known to man.

Freddy did not, and was baffled this was his boyfriend’s idea, apparently, of the happiest place on Earth. Fortunately, he’d been warned by comic books that romance was a really relative thing and that his job as a boyfriend was to roll with it. That Billy wasn’t too furious at him about the Jesse thing to talk to him at all was kind of a miracle. When he’d first arrived he would have walked away from Freddy in a heartbeat if they’d had any kind of fight. He probably would have bailed out entirely, or stolen something else from Freddy to finance his own life. That he wasn’t visibly disgusted was a real sign Malloy was earning his paycheck. Either that, or being around the Vasquez family was a lot more healing than Freddy gave it credit for.

Still, this was very much a return to how Billy had been when he first arrived in some ways. He was quiet, not saying much to Freddy as he ordered his food. His shoulders were tense, expression guarded, a sort of unspoken air of ‘don’t talk to me’ radiating off of him. Much as he was trying not to be mad at Freddy, it was there under the surface. He was angry. He was hurt. And he was refusing to talk about it, which left the burden of addressing it resting on Freddy, who didn’t have a clue how to actually start that conversation. There really wasn’t a good way to go there.

He’d messed up. He’d messed up and it was his fault that Eugene got hurt, and the worst part of it all was that Billy wasn’t blaming him. If Billy would call him out on it already it’d be so much easier. Freddy had never botched anything this badly in his life. The guilt made him desperate to do something, anything at all to get rid of the regret pounding through his veins. He was the one who had Eugene look up the info. Without him, the younger boy would never have set foot in Narberth at all, let alone crossed paths with Lina specifically. It was his fault. It was so obviously his fault that he wanted Billy to get mad at him just so he could say ‘it’s all my fault’ and, if Billy had punched him for it, he’d have rolled with it because that was completely fair. Anything Billy wanted to do or say to him was fair.

Instead of lashing out, though, Billy was retreating to somewhere in his head that Freddy couldn’t reach. He didn’t glance up at him. The whole thing was a lot like their first few family dinners together had been.

 _God, could this get any worse?_ Freddy thought dejectedly, which was when the door opened and Billy’s head perked up, eyes going wide.

“Salem?”

“Baby Bat?”

Billy practically threw himself out of the chair, pancakes with an unhealthily large side of bacon forgotten. He hugged Salem with the kind of impact that sent the older boy rocking back dangerously on his heels, laughing as he managed to stay upright. Salem pressed his face into Billy’s hair, grinning, and wrapped his arms around him in return tightly for a moment before taking a step back to look him over. Freddy leaned over in his chair to get a better look at the guy his boyfriend still had semi-regular dreams about, a sinking feeling of being outdone settling over him. He’d been showering more often and making more of an effort not to wear the same things multiple days in a row ever since he got with Billy, but he knew he wasn’t the hottest guy in the world. Between the things his last foster family had told him about his lack of lovability and seeing a picture of Jesse in the files Eugene pulled up, he was very aware he was average at best.

Next to Salem, he felt like nothing. The Arab guy was too thin the way movie stars were, tall and sleek, clad in a wine red dress shirt, black business blazer and tight black jeans, hands home to jewelry and nail polish that would have looked stupid on Freddy but looked great on someone who knew that he was doing. His eyes were a warm honey brown, his black hair a sleek, professional undercut, and Billy looked at him the way Captain America looked at Peggy Carter. Freddy half expected them to kiss. He could _see_ that in his head, see this cool guy and Billy, who was equally cool in Freddy’s eyes, hanging out and making out and-

_Nope. Don’t think about that, dude, you’ll make it weird. Don’t make it weird. Be cool, Freeman. Be cool._

“You got a haircut,” Billy blurted out by way of greeting, grinning as Salem rolled his eyes fondly.

“You got an upgrade,” Salem replied, gesturing to Freddy. “Who’s the guy you’re having a lover’s spat with?”

Billy turned red and facepalmed. “We’re not that obvious.”

“Sure you’re not.” He gave Freddy a small smile, like ‘can you believe this dumbass’, before spotting a waitress he knew and yelling for his usual. That kind of thing would only fly in a Waffle House, and only Salem could make it look cool.

 _Oh no he’s hot. Oh no, **I** think he’s hot. And unlike me, he didn’t screw everything up_. Freddy swallowed. His throat felt dry and his face felt hot. Salem grabbed Billy’s hand for a moment and squeezed it, gazing at him tenderly. Billy didn’t pull away, just nudged him and muttered, “Sap.” There was a lot going on in both of their heads that Freddy wasn’t in on, couldn’t understand because he hadn’t been there when they’d known each other, gotten together, fallen apart. He could see the bond that Billy had strained so hard when he left was still intact and it scared him. Freddy had lied to Billy and gotten Eugene hurt in a way too terrible to name. Salem had gotten Billy away from Jesse and kept him safe. _Most superheroes don’t date superheroes,_ his inner nerd murmured, while his self-doubt noted, _Salem isn’t a damn cripple._

Nine times out of ten, Freddy didn’t find the word hurtful. When it popped up in his internal monologue, that was the tenth time. He forced a friendly-ish smile as Salem held out his hand for him to shake. “Hey. You’re Billy’s ex, right?”

“Yeah, well. I can see he’s moved on.” Salem’s smile wavered for a second before he sat down, Billy sitting next to him. _This is the most awkward breakfast ever,_ Salem and Freddy both thought to themselves, though neither voiced it. “Got a name, Curly?”

“This is Freddy,” Billy introduced him, waving a hand. “He’s into superheroes, obscure trivia and all the same bad music as I am, it’s awesome. Plus I’m pretty sure the home we’re in is going to be my permanent one, so that’s cool. How, uh, how’re you doing?”

Freddy blinked a couple of times, glancing at Billy out of the corner of his eye. He hadn’t expected Billy to compliment him, or brag about him, or reach over and squeeze his hand. The Champion superhero in disguise scooted his chair closer. Salem took this in with an unreadable, calm expression, pouncing on the coffee the waitress brought as if it were the only thing keeping him awake. There were bags under his eyes, but he was clearly making an effort to pay intense, almost uncomfortable levels of attention to not just Billy but Freddy as well. Freddy got the vibe that he didn’t want to make this weird anymore than anyone else at the table. Whether or not there was any way to actually manage that, none of them knew. There wasn’t a standard protocol to follow when your boyfriend’s ex showed up out of the blue for brunch.

“I’m working on my degree, working at Chakroun House and doing that YouTube channel thing I always talked about.” He shrugged, taking a sip of his black coffee thoughtfully. “I’d plug my channel, but your new boyfriend might not like my opinions on comics.”

“You do comic book reviews?” Freddy guessed. Salem nodded. “That’s cool. Um, do you and Billy want me to leave so you can talk about… uh… you know…”

Salem shook his head. “It’s not the time. I’ve got a lot on my plate, and so does B.B. That’s definitely his brooding face.” Billy kicked him under the table, but he didn’t react, eyes on Freddy. “We can just… I mean, I hate to make you the third wheel here, Fred, but… I just wanna hang out and stuff, if that’s cool with you? I’d like to know the guy who managed to get Beebs here to settle down.”

He stared at the eighteen year old, brain screeching to a halt before kicking into high gear. _He wants to be friends. He’s not mad at me for dating Billy. Billy’s not mad at me enough to leave over the Eugene thing. Nobody’s leaving me and I’m not invisible like I am ninety percent of the time at school. He sees me. Billy sees me. HOLY SHIT THIS MIGHT NOT BE A DISASTER._ All the superhero stories featuring evil exes had not prepared him for this possibility. Heck, he’d watched soap operas and romcoms with Mary and those had angry exes in them too, or at least jealous ones. Salem wasn’t jealous, just a bit sad, a bit tired and a little curious. After a veritable domino effect of things going wrong lately, Freddy wasn’t sure how to take something going right, but he found himself nodding.

“Yeah, that’s… that’d be nice. Uh, should we talk comics? I totally got Billy hooked on Squirrel Girl and Black Widow and he’s up to speed on, like, most of Marvel’s biggest name titles now.”

Salem smiled, relieved. “Sounds like as good a place to start as any. We can move onto embarrassing stories about Billy later.”

“You suck, Witch City,” Billy muttered, giving them both a glare.

And it wasn’t normal. It was still tense, in a way, everyone waiting for someone to make it awkward, all of them trying hard to watch their words. Billy watched Salem eat with obvious concern. He was still that brooding sort of quiet, interjecting only brief observations here and there into the comic book chatter. Freddy tried not to say anything too weird in front of the guy he’d just met. He bit his lip and stayed quiet when Salem prayed over the food. There was a lot to unpack here, a lot that needed to be said. Billy _needed_ to talk to him, needed to make apologies for what he’d done almost as much as Salem needed to tell him exactly how much it hurt to be walked out on and what happened afterwards. There was no way for Freddy not to feel like a third wheel, but he also got the sense that he was a buffer keeping them both from bailing or fighting or saying something they might regret. Maybe that was the best three teenagers with no idea what they were doing could hope to manage.

They left the glorified diner together, Salem insisting on paying for everything as Billy’s early birthday present. Despite the warmth of spring, he shuddered, thin body seeming to react to even the relatively light hint of chill. Much as Freddy wanted the other guy to GTFO before Billy came to his senses and realized he had a much better option readily available, a pang of uneasy pity went through him at the sight. Billy insisted on exchanging phone numbers so they could keep in touch, shamefaced, muttering some apologies for ditching Salem that seemed to take a lot of effort just to push out.

“We’ve both been assholes, let’s not play the blame game,” the Arab boy said firmly, shutting the conversation down. “I was going through a big complicated _thing_ trying to work out my faith and my other issues and I expected you to deal with it too, and that was messed up. So you know what, B.B.? We’re even. Everything’s forgiven, go make out with your cherub-faced boyfriend with my blessing.”

Freddy scowled. “I don’t look like a cherub…” But his boyfriend didn't seem to hear him, absorbed in his own internal guilt trip.

“…I’m still sorry. For everything,” Billy clarified, wincing. “You deserve better.”

“You do, too.” He reached out and ruffled Billy’s hair, tucking a stray strand out behind his ear. “But you've got that now, right?”

“Yeah,” he said without hesitation, face softening into a smile as he took in Freddy’s surprised face. “This dick is my favorite loser to hang out with.”

“Romantic as ever, Batsy. A modern-day Romeo.” He turned to Freddy, expression moving from lighthearted to serious. “Take care of him. He needs you more than he’ll ever say.”

Freddy nodded. “I… I haven’t been doing a great job of that, lately. But I’m trying.” He avoided meeting Billy’s eyes, and found it difficult to meet Salem’s either. _I didn’t take care of him. I didn’t take care of Eugene. I got captured by Sivana and put everyone in danger. I’m not good enough for Billy, not really._ “I swear to God, I’m trying as hard as I can.”

Salem smiled, sadly. Once upon a time, he hadn’t felt good enough, too. “That’s all any of us can do, Curly. You'll figure it out, both of you. It'll be okay. See you when I see you, Baby Bat.”

He pressed a kiss to Billy’s cheek, quickly, and then he was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Billy's nickname of 'Witch City' for Salem comes from that being the official nickname for the city of Salem, Massachusetts. Salem's nicknames for Billy come from a love of annoying him and are all pretty self-explanatory.


	24. deets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The best way to win the blame game is to stop assuming it's all your fault.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for a mention of sex between Billy and Jesse. Brief, yeah, and semi-plot relevant, but still.
> 
> In my Word documents folders, this is PlotSetUpFtTooMuchSalem.doc and I feel that's a good summary. But this is a lot less exposition heavy than the last three drafts and I don't want to get behind schedule, so this is what we're going with.
> 
> I'm aware the chapter title isn't great but the idea of Freddy saying it makes me chuckle so I regret nothing.

_Jesse had nearly killed someone, but Billy didn’t blame him.  
_

_He’d always had a temper. Something could get under his skin and leave him furious for days long before he found out his parents were dead. Finding that out had undone something deep inside him, the last few threads of his ability to stay calm, and Billy thought that was fair. The fear of his own mother being dead had been a constant for him, but Jesse had never considered the idea until it was there in front of him. Nowadays he had survived, but he had not been spared. He raged. He snapped like firecrackers, violent and too hot and burning all at once. Billy should have known better than to let him get anywhere near Wyatt._

_Something nobody else understood was that Jesse had always been protective of him. He told other kids to back off, he stole back anything of Billy’s that the other foster kids took, he made sure Billy knew he had his back, and with how many times they changed locations that was all an insane amount of effort. The blond lived for Billy at times. Everyone should have known it, should have been able to see it, but people only saw him as a troubled kid who got into fights and shot off at the mouth. Nobody was there to see him patch up Billy’s scrapes and bruises. When Billy needed someone to tell him it would be alright, it was ‘trouble child’ Jesse Dobrescu who told him that. When he needed help keeping up with school – switching them so regularly virtually decimated his GPA – he knew Jesse would help him and shit talk his teachers with him. Billy was Jesse’s in ways that went beyond just being a friend, beyond being a boyfriend, even. He was his._

_He was his, and that made what he did Billy’s crime, too. When the cops came looking for evidence of what had happened to Wyatt, they knew enough to interview Billy. He knew enough to know to lie for him. Since he was objectively terrible at lying he’d had to go for silence instead. Silence, he could tell even at the time, was making him look more suspicious._

_What he didn’t know until later was that to Officer Xiong, he gave off clear signs of abuse: worrying about doing something wrong, no hobbies, no friends, longstanding habit of running away, disdain for being touched, and a constant sense of being on alert. He wasn’t subtle. He was, however, a kid who had never indicated he was abused who had been placed in good homes, with good people who hadn’t ever laid an unkind hand on him. They couldn’t prove anything on that front. There was nothing to prove, after all.  
_

_He never considered that anyone would suspect his relationship with Jesse of being abusive, because he didn’t think it was._

_“You know, you don’t have to cover for him,” Officer Xiong said quietly, trying to get him to meet her eyes again. “I know, I know: you ‘don’t know what I’m talking about’. You can take care of yourself. You did just fine long before I showed up. Look, kid, I get it. I grew up like this, too. Doesn’t mean you don’t need to hear this when I say you’ve got back up if you need it.”_

_“Whatever.” He folded his arms, leaning back into the couch, wondering what she was even getting at. “I’ve got Jesse for back up, and I ‘get it’, you think that means I’d let him do anything he wanted-”_

_“I think you already_ have _,” she corrected, making Billy do a double take at how brazen a statement that was. “I’m not going to try to talk you out of following him around. I doubt I can. But I’m going to tell you this, because nobody told me when I was your age: you deserve better. You deserve to have hobbies, friends, and a life that doesn’t revolve around him. And one day, when you get that, when you realize you need out, you need to know you deserve help.”_

_He made no motion to take the card from her that she held out. “What is this?”_

_“My number – my off-duty, personal number, so you know this offer doesn’t have an expiration date.” She stared him down, unblinking, until he took the piece of paper from her. “When you’re doing things for you and not just for him, you let me know.”_

_“Sure.” Billy made a concentrated effort to look more sincere than he was. He would never turn on Jesse, not when it was his fault. He was the reason Jesse was mad at Wyatt to start with, and if the legal system didn’t see it that way, that was only because they didn’t understand that Billy was also the reason Jesse knew his parents were dead. He’d undone his sanity and put him around people who pushed his buttons – of course things went wrong. “But seriously, it’s more mutual than you think. We help each other, I don’t just help him.”_

_Nobody else ever celebrated Billy’s birthday with him. Jesse was the one who got him gifts, actually sat down to think out something instead of asking him outright what he wanted, and went through the effort of hiding them and wrapping them. He got him the most hideous cake possible whenever possible, or they’d go to Waffle House, or they would sneak into a theater and then blow their money on popcorn. Billy would try not to get too depressed that he’d gone another year without his mom. When they got a moment alone, the blond would pull him close and let him call the shots for sex that was as close to tender as Jesse ever really got, all sharp bites and scratching nails stowed unless they were asked for. Somewhere inbetween the food and the sex and the latest stolen gifts Billy would lose track of how incredibly lonely he was._

_Even when he worried his mom didn’t want him, he_ knew _Jesse did. That was worth covering for him._

_For now._

 

* * *

 

 

 _Billy seriously tried to keep his birthday from you? What a dork._ Salem snorted to himself, sipping his fourth black coffee of the day. _Does he still do that thing where he cracks his left ankle in his sleep?_

Freddy sent a flurry of emojis. He did that a lot – Billy called it ‘basic white bitch texting’ – while Salem had sworn off emoji usage altogether after the time a foster family he’d lived with had taken all the kids to _The Emoji Movie_. In reference to Billy, though, Freddy felt only a series of emoji spam and keyboard smashes could begin to properly convey how frustrating he was. The best part of being in contact with his boyfriend’s ex, it turned out, was having someone to vent to about all the little things that continued to baffle him no matter how much Billy opened up.

Case in point: _y does it make that sound tho?? i dont get that part_

 _He might’ve broken it. It was the pre-Jesse era, no one took him to a doctor._ That Billy had survived the pre-Jesse era at all was astounding, really. Salem wondered if Billy had woken Freddy up cracking his ankle the way normal people cracked their knuckles; that was how it'd gone for him.

_wtf, vic + rosa always take us to doctors. anyway what does bb want for his bday?_

_Hard to say. He always preferred things he could pawn for money to find his mom. You could try comics, since you got him addicted._

He stared at his phone as the emoji combos started up again, tilting his head thoughtfully. Salem spoke three languages, but speaking Freddy was a skill only Billy seemed to have truly mastered. He guessed, from the repeated usage of the upside-down smiley face, that Freddy was frustrated by his overly-obvious suggestion. Either that, or the comment about Billy’s mother was hard to take. The number of things in Billy’s life that he’d given up for her was extra hard to take now that they all knew his mother didn’t want him. Billy had brushed over the topic with Salem in person and then ranted about how it was fine over text in a way that screamed ‘not fine’. Once upon a time, he’d have made Billy tea and distracted him with a Bollywood movie while they sort-of-cuddled, sort-of-groped each other. That time, however, was over. It was up to Freddy to do that, or whatever his equivalent was, while Salem provided a shoulder to cry on from a distance. Billy didn’t deal well with too many people trying to act concerned about him – he barely knew how to handle it when Jesse and Salem both cared about him, let alone a family a new boyfriend and an old one. Best to keep his distance for now.

_UGH YOU ARE THE LEAST HELPFUL srsly! what’re you getting him??_

_A hundred dollar gift certificate to Chakroun House; my boss is fine with it and Billy needs to eat something that isn’t Waffle House, McDonald’s or food truck pizza. I don’t think he ate a single piece of fruit prior to meeting me and that’s not an exaggeration._

Freddy, across town, shot a superior look out the window and hoped Salem felt it. He sort of did. _he eats better w/ me. i have mastered the proper caring and feeding of my billy batson._

 _That’s adorable. You’re like the Billy Whisperer._ He grinned, imagining Freddy dragging an unwilling and likely disgruntled Billy to the dinner table. _I’m glad he’s got you. He needs someone looking out for him, even if he doesn’t think he does._

_he said jesse used to look out 4 him. is that true? idk how much of what he says is legit but u knew j soooo… deets?_

Salem glanced around the mostly empty restaurant. Texting on his break was fine, but some phantom paranoia leftover from the days of foster care still had him worried someone would suddenly show up over his shoulder. He’d spent a lot of his life with burner phones he barely contacted anyone on. Billy was the same, if not worse due to his constant relocation, and they both shut down sometimes. For Billy, Jesse was the topic that made him retreat into himself. Talking about Jesse to Freddy felt like a betrayal. He knew his ex wouldn’t have wanted him to tell Freddy everything he knew, he knew _why_ Billy felt that way, he’d seen the worst of the panic attacks that started up after Salem found a way to separate the two. Billy rarely cried, but when he did he’d go until he made himself sick, laying on the floor gasping for air as his whole body shook with the impact of the sobbing. The first two weeks were so bad that Salem had been afraid the younger teen might try to hurt himself or do something more drastic; he’d actually been relieved when he found out from Social Services that Billy had just run away again, because it meant he was at least alive.

Going into any kind of detail about that toxic mess might risk putting him back into that headspace. At the same time, though, Billy’s new family needed to know the broad strokes of the truth if they were going to help him. That went for his new boyfriend, too. The Arab teen glanced around again out of habit before responding.

_I’m not sure how much detail I really want to go into. TL;DR, Jesse kept Billy from getting beat up and he taught him a lot of things about how to survive. He thought of it as keeping him safe. It took him a long time to realize the person he needed to keep Billy safe from was himself._

_y did he leave? they were so close. idgi_

_I made him leave. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that I struck a deal with him. Either way, the end result was Jesse no longer being a thing and that didn’t go the way I’d hoped. Don’t be like me. Don't to go around his back on anything. Billy needs somebody he can trust. He needs a good guy, and that's you.  
_

He busied himself with picking up the plates of the last patrons of the restaurant while he let Freddy process that. For once, the curly-haired cherub didn’t text back right away, and that was more than understandable given what Salem had told him. Most people didn’t know why Jesse had left. Really, Billy didn’t know, either, or had chosen not to accept that Jesse had been talked out of being around him. Salem had tried to explain things only to find that his boyfriend was flatly unwilling to deal with the reality of the situation outright. Billy thought Jesse loved him. People didn’t leave people they loved after one or two stern conversations, so in his mind he’d made it his fault, decided that he must have done something wrong. And admittedly, Salem had never told Jesse to cut all contact with him. That was a decision the blond had made on his own. A charitable reading of events was that Jesse was trying to protect Billy from his continued bad influence. A pragmatic reading was that he wanted a clean break to avoid legal consequences for injuring Wyatt and committing statutory with Billy and this was the easiest way to manage it.

No amount of thinking about how things had gone made Jesse any clearer to Salem. He was too erratic, changing from almost friendly to deeply hateful to completely distant on a near daily basis when they’d lived under the same roof. The last day they’d seen each other he’d gone from threatening murder to something almost sweet. Maybe Salem should have tried to get him some psychological help. Maybe he could’ve salvaged things without shoving Jesse clear out of the county and thus out of Billy’s life entirely. Or maybe he’d done the right thing and this was the only way things could have ended.

Salem was older than Billy and Freddy, but he was equally lost on what to do in the face of all this.

Everyone involved had made a lot of shitty decisions, none of which could be taken back. Most of the time, Salem tried to focus on the present and the near future. He’d managed to find a job at a Middle Eastern restaurant, he got into college, he had just enough income from his YouTube channel that he might be able to, with another job this summer, afford an apartment and not have to try to find a friend willing to let him live on their couch. Theoretically he could have asked his imam, but his pride was more or less the only thing he’d taken out of his life in the foster care system intact, and it kept him from being able to really ask for that kind of help. He set the dishes by the sink before ducking back out to pick up his phone, sighing quietly at the fact they were even having this conversation. No amount of coffee could take away how tired he felt when he thought about all this. He’d managed to pull his own life together, more or less, but getting there was going to be a long, hard road for Billy. Salem was not going to be enough to help him through this. Freddy could be. (That should not have hurt as much as it did.)

 _u seem like a good guy. kinda skinny but whatever sm guys r into that so u do u._ Unseen by Freddy, Salem rolled his eyes before Freddy course-corrected in the next message. Rambling over texts was a uniquely Freddy skill. _i thought i ws being a good boyfriend by digging into billy’s record but. he’s mad. and he won’t admit he’s mad. and i think hed be better off dating u than me sometimes._

_You’re the one he’s choosing to date, Freddy. You’re the one he thinks is worth staying for. No matter who you think he’s better off with, you’re the only one he wants. And we won’t know you’re NOT the better choice unless you stick with him._

He swallowed, forcing back a wave of regret. In some alternate universe, maybe he could have been enough to stabilize Billy’s life in the wake of Jesse’s abrupt exit, but he made himself focus on the positive. Billy had Freddy now and Freddy was almost obnoxiously dedicated. It wouldn’t surprise him to find out that Freddy had basically forced his way into Billy’s life through sheer power of personality alone. That was what Billy needed – someone as loud and honest as he was quiet and distant. They could bring out the best in each other if the past didn’t sabotage what they had. Foster kids had a bad track record with that. The past was all they had, a lot of the time, making all the mistakes, guilt, anger and sadness warp and grow into insurmountable obstacles. Feeling unwanted, invisible, broken, and damaged were all standard to some degree. If Freddy could help keep Billy from that, then it was Salem’s job to be supportive, damnit, not to sit here feeling sorry for himself. That wasn’t going to fix anything.

_damn you make this shit sound romantic. which is weird bc billy and i spent the last hour debating if winterfrost or taserwings is the better marvel ship._

_First of all, Winter Falcon is superior to both. Secondly, romance is relative. Just be honest, don’t point out how schmoopy and romantic it is that he’s into cuddling, and go for the neck when you’re making out. This is not that complicated._

There was a flurry of emojis, none of which made sense to Salem, who wondered why Freddy had an accordion emoji to start with, let alone why he was using it. There was only a three year age gap between them, but Freddy made Salem feel old sometimes in ways he wasn’t sure what to do with.

_OH MY GOD U CANT JUST SAY THAT now i cant stop picturing u + him! dude u owe me now_

_Fine. Here’s a quick lifehack for Beebs: if you rub the back of his neck with four fingers in a kneading motion, he stops moving. It’s like an off button. Try it next time you’re having an argument._

Billy was going to kill him for sharing that, but Salem lived far enough away now that he at least didn’t have to worry about him putting a bucket of water above his door anymore. There was a three minute pause, during which Salem tidied up several tables and set out new silverware, and then his phone buzzed repeatedly with three pictures, each of which showed a blissful, sleepy looking Billy on a bed surrounded by comics. His eyes were half-shut and his gaze was slightly unfocused. Salem smiled fondly at the sight.

_holy shit you weren’t kidding. we will never fight abt anything ever again. no wonder he wears layers all the time hes a literal ferret omg!!!_

_It helps with his nightmares. Just try to use your powers for good, Freeman._

_i make no promises lol g2g billy is mad_


	25. Better

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy tries to learn to be domestic and live life. Freddy falls even more in love with his boyfriend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thus begins a series of learning-to-live and Freebat centric chapters and moments. I'm not saying they'll be conflict free, but they're learning to navigate conflict a little better, so. Progress!

Being a foster kid meant portable interests – things that could be transported, replaced, and didn’t require other people to be enjoyed. That was why Eugene was into games, Pedro was into music, Freddy was into comics largely stored in digital form prior to this foster home, and Darla was into anime and webmanga. 

Billy was bad at actually having hobbies. This made his birthday a hard thing to plan for, something he hadn’t really realized until Rosa and Victor were asking him for hints on what he wanted.

In retrospect, the question was kind of inevitable. Even Jesse had always defaulted to food, clothes and other things that were either temporary or practical, and he’d had the most time to try to get to know Billy. He arguably spent more time thinking of Billy than Billy Batson himself did, given how much of Billy’s time was focused on finding his mom and obtaining the funds to keep looking for her. His birthday wasn’t important to him the way it was other people other than being a reminder that another year had gone by without her in his life. Every birthday got depressing with that hanging over him. This time, the weight should have been lifted – he had a family, now, siblings and a boyfriend and an ex who was basically a friend, and also literal superpowers.

Mostly he was just lost. The idea of hanging out at a birthday party was already weird since nobody ever invited the foster kids to their place, but a party meant for _him_? He was too weirded out to even make fun of it. If he could have, he would have just made himself Shazam and gone out on a prolonged asskicking spree until the day was over.

“We have almost the same birthday!” Darla told him at breakfast when their parents mentioned his fifteenth coming up. “Mine’s the day after yours, but only a teensy-tiny bit. I was born at midnight.”

Intrigued despite the way Darla had sunk his plans to skip out on the whole thing, he asked his joyful little sister, “How do you even know that? _Why_ do you even know that?”

“My papa told me,” she said, making most of the table go still. Darla remembered very, very little about her parents, and any mention of them was startling. “He said midnight is lucky. I don’t remember why, I think it was in a song or something… but anyway, it means basically we have the same birthday, almost.”

“…do we get one cake or two?” Billy asked, glancing around the breakfast table at his siblings for some clue on what the hell was going on. “I, uh, I don’t mind clearing out if Darla needs to have her own party or… or whatever…”

 _Smooth, Bill_ , his inner Jesse said, and he winced as Pedro muttered something about wanting two cakes and everyone else gave Billy looks that said they thought he was being weird about this. In all fairness, he _was_ , but still, they didn’t have to make it so obvious.

“You have to be at my party!” Darla declared, wrapping her arms around him and nearly toppling out of her chair in the process. “You’re my brother! We can share the party. And a cake, I guess? I was going to make vegan cheesecake. Do you like cheesecake?”

“Probably? I haven’t had it in forever,” he admitted. Her hug intensified. “I guess so long as it’s cake it’s good either way, so. Yeah, we’ll split a party, I guess.”

Thus Billy sealed his fate. Short of an actual supervillain showing up, he was now committed to actually spending a birthday doing birthday things. He had no idea what that meant for him, since while he’d been in a home or two when someone’s birthday hit, he’d never really participated. Yes, he got people gifts, usually something kind of impersonal and not very expensive, and he’d managed to bring himself to put up with the awkwardness of singing happy birthday and cards when it was for a particularly young foster sibling, but that was it. He wasn’t a party person. The few times he’d let Jesse drag him to a college party they really, _really_ should not have been crashing, he’d hated those, too. What the heck was he supposed to do at these things, stand there and pretend he wanted to eat cake and talk to people? He didn’t.

 _You are a ray of sunshine as always, Baby Bat,_ Salem texted him when Billy ranted in a blocky paragraph of a text about it. _Just shut up and let yourself be spoiled. It’s not as bad as you’d think._

Bad wasn’t the word he wanted to use, not really. Awkward was close, but it didn’t quite capture the essence of the problem either.

“I miss Jesse,” he explained to Dr. Malloy, looking and feeling super guilty about that. “I mean, obviously I did three birthdays without him, when I was way younger, but, like… he was the only one I could count on to remember or care about this stuff. He was a thing whenever it was my birthday. Does that make sense? I feel like I’m not saying this right.”

He was sprawled out on Dr. Malloy’s couch, face half-buried in the cushions, visibly tired and stressed. On the plus side, that meant he was actually letting Malloy see his tiredness and stress, as well as actively trying to express himself. That was progress. It wasn’t the force-it-all-out honesty of his first session, thank God, and it was a lot less self-hating than some of their previous sessions. Much as Billy didn’t think of himself as having come a long way, because Billy thought in absolutes of success or failure, he was at the very least not backsliding. Dr. Malloy noted without comment the way that his young patient’s eyes lingered on the plastic container of toys the psychologist kept for his younger clientele. With anyone else, he might mention that it was fine to grab one, but a lot of Billy’s background lent itself to not taking that kind of comment well. He needed to do things on his own terms, and Malloy was content to allow him to take things at his own pace.

Easing him into the idea that how he felt wasn’t abnormal, however, was turning out to take longer than he’d anticipated. “That makes sense, Billy. When someone is a constant in your life or you closely associate them with an event or place, it would be more abnormal if you didn’t miss their presence – even if they were bad for you,” he added as Billy opened his mouth to object. “It isn’t unhealthy or abnormal to miss someone who wasn’t good to you if they were a major part of your life.”

“It feels like I should know better,” Billy said, frowning slightly. “I know I shouldn’t miss him, but… he really wasn’t all bad. And I wish I knew he was okay – and I don’t mean ‘has a job and lives in a good part of town’, I mean, like, I don’t want him to be miserable. ‘Cause I really think he was, a lot of the time, and even though he… even though we… is it bad to want him to be okay?”

“No, it isn’t. I have yet to find any psychological texts that would support the idea that wanting people to be happy is a bad thing.” Malloy gave him an encouraging look as Billy snorted, amused in spite of the emotional toll recovery was taking on him. “You told me you hope your mom is happy and that she can make her latest relationship work. You hope your father can get help in prison. You tortured yourself over having consensual sex with Salem. Caring about other people is a fundamental part of who you are and as far as flaws go, there’s certainly worse ones out there. What do you _think_ your reaction should be, if not this?”

Billy shrugged, difficult as it was in his current position. “I dunno. I’m angry at him, sometimes, and then I have days like this.”

“As my wife would say: two things can be true. You can be angry at someone and miss them. One isn’t a more rational or appropriate response than the other.”

“…I still have, you know, the, uh, dreams.” He cringed, and Dr. Malloy felt a pang of sympathy for him. There was never really a good age to talk about sex dreams with a semi-stranger, but fourteen was definitely one of the more awkward points to attempt it. “And I’m still getting super random hard-ons, and Freddy is the best boyfriend in the history of the world because he hasn’t called me out on it, but that makes me feel worse? Seriously, he’s dope and I don’t like that I’m dragging him down.”

Malloy suppressed the urge to point out the way Billy was proving that point about caring about other people. “Has he actually expressed to you that you’re dragging him down?”

“Well, no? But the last time I made him feel bad I ignored how shitty I was being until he yelled at me and that was, like, a week into my asshole-dom, so I’m trying to not let things get that bad again. You know, stop it before it starts.”

“That’s very mature of you. However, and I know you hate it when I say this, the best way to prevent that sort of misunderstanding is to-”

“Talk to him, yeah.” Billy buried his face in the couch, a portrait of teenage angst. “Do you have any easier advice?”

“I’m afraid not, no.” He at least managed to sound genuinely regretful.

“You suck, Malloy. You're great, but also, you suck."

“That's therapy for you."

 

* * *

 

 

Freddy was not good at romantic stuff. Fortunately, he knew someone who actually was.

With Shay’s help, he had figured out a list of possible gifts that one, would not make Billy feel uncomfortable with how much they cost and two, would probably be something he liked. She’d offered to drive him if Mary couldn’t, but he didn’t take either of them up on that. They were busy trying to figure out college stuff and study for the SAT and ACT tests, and he didn’t want to interrupt. Besides, he was fourteen, he could deal with shopping. How hard could it be?

Three hours after thinking that as he set out, he took over the bathroom to try to get the ache out of his legs with hot water and sheer force of regret. This was a chronic thing for him. He didn’t want to let his disability stop him, he’d read enough comics where people overcame the pain through willpower to subconsciously think he could do the same, and inevitably he ended up barely able to stand. His initial plans for a shower got derailed when the stabbing pain in his joints refused to let him stay upright. With a thud, he slid down into a sitting position, barely catching himself with his hands. Freddy groaned. He hated this, absolutely hated everything about this, from the limitations to the aftermath to the little voice in the back of his head whispering _Billy could do better._

He tried to remind himself of what Salem had rightfully pointed out: Billy didn’t want better. He wanted Freddy. But it was one thing to be told that, and another to try to believe it was true when he was at his lowest.

A knocking on the bathroom door startled him. “Uh, dude? I heard a thud. You okay?” It was Billy, sounding super awkward, which was fair. Freddy felt awkward talking to Billy naked even through a door, and he had no idea why other than the general principle of the thing.

“I’m fine, just tired,” he assured him, feeling the hot water slowly ease the pain out of his legs and reclining back onto his elbows to try to get the maximum effect. Mary was going to kill him for using up the hot water, but he didn’t care. “Could you grab me my clothes? It’ll be easier to change in here where I can hold onto the sink.”

“Sure, I guess. You want me to grab you aspirin or something?” Billy was audibly clueless, but clearly trying his best regardless. _God, I love him,_ Freddy thought fondly. _The spirit of Captain Sparklefingers is there even in Billy form._

“That’d be awesome, dude. You’re the best.” He shut his eyes, wondering if he could call this a successful shower if he didn’t shampoo or condition his hair. Getting up to grab either of those sounded like more effort than it was worth.

He was still in that wonderfully lazy position in the bathtub when Billy carefully opened the door, making a lot of concentrated effort not to look in the direction of the shower curtain, and set a spare change of clothes, a glass of water and aspirin on the bathroom sink counter. He shut the door quickly, as if afraid someone would catch him in the act of doing something wrong even though he was only helping Freddy out. There was a pause, visible if not audible over the water. On the one hand, Billy wanted to check in on him, on the other, they were still learning to navigate that whole aspect of this. Too much checking in would be awkward and weird and a little bit condescending, maybe. Not enough and Billy felt like a tool. Either way, none of the books Freddy had gotten – and he’d gotten over a dozen – addressed the _existence_ of disabled partners, let alone how to deal with this sort of thing. That was something Freddy forced himself not to think about. _I’m too tired to get depressed right now_ , he decided, yawning and getting a mouthful of water for his trouble.

“Do you, um, do you want me to hand you the shampoo, or… I don’t know, squirt bodywash over you or something?” Billy chuckled, suddenly, which was never a good sign. “Mary’s got that lavender stuff you could try.”

“Dude, not cool. Don’t make me smell like flowers when I can’t fight back, you dick,” he scoffed, forcing himself to sit up. “Is that any way to treat your trusty sidekick? Just dump some conditioner on me and go.”

He could hear Billy snort and knew he was rolling his eyes even without being able to see him. They were at that point in their relationship, he guessed: the snarky teasing point Marvel heroes reached before someone turned out to be a Skrull or a villain or, sometimes, they got married. None of those were currently an option, but he hoped it was a good sign anyway. Shifting into a slightly more comfortable position, Freddy felt his heart speed up when he realized he’d just basically invited Billy to get a good look at him naked. That was kind of messed up to do when somebody had been through what Billy had, right? He shouldn’t find this sexy. And he did, and he didn’t, because he had more than a few scars from corrective surgeries and one leg was significantly less bulky than the other. Freddy almost told Billy he’d changed his mind, opened his mouth to do so-

And then Billy pulled back the shower curtain. Freddy felt his mouth go dry as his boyfriend’s eyes flickered over his body, too anxious to move to cover himself up. Was he decent looking? Did he compare to Salem? Hell, did he compare to Jesse, who looked muscular and inarguably handsome in his files when Eugene dug them up? Could he ever really hold a candle to able-bodied, older guys? He couldn’t look at Billy right away, some part of him that Rosa had never been able to soothe over expecting to see disgust or disappointment on his face. No matter how many times she told him people loved with their hearts, not their eyes, he couldn’t really make himself believe it. His heart hammered in his chest, louder than the water. When Billy handed him the conditioner, he fully expected that to be the end of it, for him to leave the bathroom and never talk about this again. He felt his face turn red with humiliation.

Billy knelt down, leaned in over the bathtub’s rim, and not caring if he got wet, kissed him.

Freddy squeaked, making Billy smile against him fondly. He was an infinitely better kisser than Freddy, a fact amplified by how he’d caught him off-guard, but Freddy found he didn’t really give a damn. He forgot about the pain in his leg entirely as he kissed him back. A warmth that had nothing to do with the hot water settled over him, a feeling of being wanted and loved and desired that he almost couldn’t believe was real. If he could have, he would have made the moment last forever. Freddy sometimes felt invisible. In this moment, he could tell from the way Billy tangled his fingers in his hair that he was the only one he saw, the only one he wanted to be with. _He chose me,_ Freddy thought, grinning as Billy moved back to look him in the eyes. _He doesn’t want better._ This time, that didn’t seem so insignificant.

“I, uh, I should probably go before my brain finds a way to spin this into a panic attack,” Billy noted, adding with a wince, “Not that I want to, I just – I don’t want to freak myself out or freak you out, or something. Sorry.”

“It’s cool. I mean, um, I’m not a shrink, but like, this is progress, right? So you don’t have to be sorry or whatever. This is still smoother than anything I’ve ever done, dude.”

Billy chuckled, standing up and taking a step back. “Yeah, well. You’re smooth enough for me, man.”

Freddy didn’t stop grinning all night.


	26. Scarring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy has a nightmare. Exhaustion starts to overtake anxiety in prevalence. Freddy remains the one fixed point in a changing world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for this chapter for an explicit discussion of the aftermath of sexual abuse and, as that implies, referenced past abuse. I'm not sure how to warn for this but practice safe reading, regardless.

_Billy’s therapist had warned him that as he moved along in the recovery process, bad dreams were inevitable, but the intensity of the nightmare took him by surprise regardless.  
_

_He was with Jesse, exploring the park they’d played in when they were younger. Philadelphia didn’t have as many parks as cities in what was considered New England proper did, so despite moving around, they’d ended up in the same range as a couple of parks repeatedly. Exploring was mandatory. They never had any real ability to listen to adults, not when it was hot and the shade of the trees was cool, and so long as they came back most foster parents were willing to overlook the disobedience. There were worse things two boys could get up to than going off the paths into the pseudo-woods and seeing what they could find. Over the years, they’d found some stuff off the paths that they’d sit around and speculate about – a fancy looking gem bracelet that turned out to be really good imitation everything, a map of New Jersey, some guy’s wallet, a Monster High doll someone had tried to set on fire, and most absurdly, a knife in a tree. They used to speculate on how those things got there and the people who left them._

_In his dream, they were among the trees, moving towards the tree they’d found stabbed with a knife. Dreams being kinder than reality sometimes, the tree was no longer home to a knife and was growing well, and instead there was a spring at its’ roots that produced a little creek of fresh water. Billy did not question this. Under dream logic, it seemed perfectly normal, nice, even, as he knelt beside it to get a drink._

_“Is that sanitary?” Jesse asked, which was a valid point._

_Billy shrugged, not remotely repentant. “Eh, we’ve probably had worse at food trucks. Besides, you drank rubbing alcohol that one time and you’re still okay.”_

_“One time!” he protested, pale cheeks going red at the memory. Billy chuckled at him and his boyfriend muttered, “I should push you into the creek for that.”_

_He didn’t, though. He sat on a long-forgotten plastic lawn chair, which was more or less a staple of forests after the Fourth of July in Philly where people would sneak into the parks to light off fireworks away from the cops’ prying eyes. Billy always wondered why they just left stuff there. Surely that was more evidence? Ah, well. Jesse had a chair and Billy leaned against a tree, watching the water glisten and listening to it gurgle. There was the sharp tang in the air of impending autumn mixed with the faint leftover cigarette smoke smell from whoever had been here before them. It was nice, cozy, even, to simply be here in this place without having to think about their parents or money or their lack of leads. Billy spent so much time working on finding his mom that he rarely got a day off. He shut his eyes, breathing in the smell of fresh water and earth._

_When he opened them, he was at the Rock of Eternity._

_His superhero lair was different, something was off, but it took him a second to process it. There was only one throne intact – the others had been broken, turned into piles of debris – and the one that was left was lighter grey, a smoother kind of granite with flecks of silver that caught the light and glowed. And on the throne was Jesse, looking as intimidating and unmerciful as Billy had ever seen him, regal and sinister in his leather jacket and dark jeans. Billy took a step back, but couldn’t bring himself to run. He was paralyzed with fear, unable to take his eyes off of Jesse’s grey ones._

_“You didn’t look for me.” Jesse’s voice was coldly furious. “You didn’t believe Salem when he said he got me to leave. You blamed me for leaving instead. You blamed me for everything, just like everyone else.”_

_Billy shook his head. “You – wait, you’re – Jesse, you never went looking_ for me _. You said you loved me and you didn’t look for me either!”_

_“I loved you. I rearranged my life for you, for years, I stole, I lied, I broke into places for you and I fought people for you. I gave you everything. I did everything for you. All I asked for was for you to love me and let me love you, and we were happy. And you threw it all away for some guy who couldn’t even keep it together enough to feed himself and then a goddamn cripple. Are they better than me?”_

_“Yes.” It was a whisper, but Jesse heard it in the cold, echoing room. He rose up, shadows swirling up behind him to block out the dim lighting and make the chamber darker. Billy shivered, even though at some point in the dream he’d found himself wearing his old layers of clothes and jacket._

_“I’m the one who got you to them,” Jesse pointed out, silently moving down the stairs towards Billy with deliberate motions. “I’m the one who kept you from giving up. I financed your stupid search for a mom I_ knew _didn’t love you. I told you she didn’t, and you ignored me and kept going even though it broke you.”_

_Billy’s hands curled into fists. “It didn’t break me.”_

_In an instant, Jesse was in front of him, silver eyes glinting like knives, suddenly livid and loud. “Don’t fucking lie to me! I know you better than anyone else! You’re too broken to talk about it with your therapist or your parents or your latest temporary fix of a boyfriend! You’re so fucked in the head you don’t even know how to deal with living in one place!”_

_He didn’t answer._

_“You think about leaving. Running. Back to me, where you belong. You belong to me.”_

_“No.”_

_Jesse grabbed him by the collar, hauling him closer. “What was that?”_

_“I don’t belong to anyone.” He saw the shadows morph behind Jesse into leering, angry humanoid forms, ill-defined except for ravenous white teeth and hollow grey eyes, but he held Jesse’s gaze. “I don’t belong to you. Fuck you. You can rot, dude. I’m never going to Narberth and I’m never seeing you again and you deserve that for all the shit you did to me.”_

_“You liked it.” He grabbed the younger boy’s wrists, a familiar vice grip. “You get off on it. You dream about it.”_

_Billy shut his eyes. He couldn’t answer. He didn’t want to, didn’t want to rehash this fight. He wanted Victor and Rosa here, or Dr. Malloy, or Freddy. He murmured Freddy’s name, unsurprised when Jesse responded by tightening his grip. When he opened his eyes, though, there was something else in the blond’s eyes, which made the next turn events took baffling. As much as Jesse had always been unpredictable, some things were unfortunate constants. But that was when Billy had gone along with him. When crossed, Jesse was a different person._

_He shoved Billy’s left wrist downward so he had to turn around to keep his balance, then grabbed his other wrist to hold him, back pressed to Jesse’s front, as the shadows advanced. Their teeth were the only points of light left in a dark, deep void. Billy thrashed. He kicked Jesse, repeatedly, turning his head away when the taller boy pressed kisses to his temples. The advancing shadows snarled, murmuring things that sounded like insults. He couldn’t remember the word to transform._ Freddy. I need Freddy. I need a superhero. I’m so tired of saving myself, I can’t do it anymore-

 _Jesse bit down into his shoulder, hard, and then the shadows were on them and Billy choked on a scream._

 

* * *

 

 

He woke up shaking.

Normally he would try to keep Freddy from hearing his freakouts, but this time he couldn’t help it. He curled into a ball and shook and tried to focus on anything, literally anything else. His heart was racing. The walls were closing in. This room was too small, too quiet. All he could hear was his own ragged breathing and the squeaking of the bed as Freddy stirred below him. Everything Jesse said about not being okay staying in one place and not looking for him made him want to cry. The things he’d said about the sex made it impossible to remember how to cry. He just shut down, staring at the walls and ceiling, unmoving, not responding when Freddy said his name. Was there some way to get outside, run, burn off this sudden energy that was clawing away at him from the inside out, shredding his nerves raw? Could he sneak out and back?

Was there a point? He’d only fall apart again. He fell apart without Jesse an awful lot, actually, but the thought of returning to him was half comfort, half literal, actual, freshly lived nightmare. His heart hammering, Billy stayed still for so long that he heard Freddy lay back down to try to go back to sleep. _I should say something. What – what do I say? I don’t know how to stay. I don’t – I don’t know what to do – I need – I can’t think – I –_

“Freddy?” he managed to croak, and instantly Freddy shifted in bed, clearly awake. “I’m – I’m not okay. Can I just – can we just talk?”

It was vague, bad wording, but it was good enough. “Yeah, sure, dude. You okay?”

He climbed down from the top bunk, shaking his head mutely. Without a word, he sat down beside Freddy on the bed, folding his hands in his lap, and without a word, Freddy wrapped an arm around him to give him a brief hug. The warmth was welcome. It was the only thing that felt real. Nothing else did. The Bed Buddies Darla made, sitting loyally on the desk, the coat Shay had gotten him, the new backpack Rosa had gotten him, none of it seemed real. Why would anyone give him anything like that? He’d just leave. That was what he did. That was all he knew how to do, just like his mom.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Freddy asked, not seeming surprised when Billy shook his head. “Do you wanna watch a movie on my laptop?” Billy nodded, and Freddy got up to grab it. “Anything in particular?”

He shrugged. That was less of a trauma thing than it was part of being a foster kid. He’d seen too many kids fight over what movie to watch and get in trouble with foster parents, so early on he’d learned not to bother. His knowledge of movies was kind of garbage. Fortunately he had Freddy. Freddy loved catching him up on all the awesome stuff he’d missed out on, even if it was currently three in the morning. He knew everything Billy didn’t. Right now Billy needed that know-it-all streak, wanted Freddy to watch his face for reactions when a good scene was coming up, and Freddy was inexplicably okay with giving that to him.

Laptop balanced in their laps, Billy rested against him as they watched one of the more obscure Disney movies. It was a bunch of musical animated shorts. He’d never admit to liking that in front of any of his old foster families, it had taken a lot to get him to admit to Salem he didn’t _hate_ musicals, but he could watch something soft and childish with Freddy, no problem. Slowly the world came back into focus, the edges less sharp, the anxiety less overwhelming. Mostly he was tired. No, it went beyond tired into something else, a deeper kind of exhaustion. He wanted a break from life. In lieu of that, Freddy squeezing his hand as they watched Disney tell the love story of two hats in a hat shop was good too.

He wasn’t good at staying, but he wanted to stay with Freddy.

“Um, Billy?” Freddy said quietly, when the movie was over. “I know you don’t want to talk about it, but like, you can if you want to. Or I could tell Victor and Rosa you’re sick so you can take a day off. Mental health days are a thing. Or-”

“I wanna talk about it.” He picked up the laptop, taking it back to the desk. “It’s just – I think it’d be easier to show you.” _While I’m still too tired to be afraid. I don’t want to be afraid. I can’t deal with that anymore, I can’t deal with anything, I just want to get all this healing shit over with and go back to bed._

Walking back over to his boyfriend, who was standing there looking at him with unbearable kindness, Billy silently took Freddy’s hand and guided it under the top of his shirt, to the line of his collarbone and then to his shoulder.

The same falling feeling that had set in when he had opened up to Malloy came over him; he was cold, yet heat was spiking in the back of his neck, stomach twisting. It was possible to be tired and anxious simultaneously, apparently, and that sucked. _How many of these moments do I have to have before things are okay?_ He kept his eyes on Freddy’s face in defiance of his own nerves. He couldn’t keep being afraid. Billy was a goddamn superhero, he could face down the mistakes he’d made, from ever getting tangled up with Jesse to letting things get as far as they did. There was no taking back what had happened, but he could own up to the damage that was still written across the billboard of his skin.

He didn’t trust himself to assess whether or not this was fucked up. He trusted Freddy, though.

Freddy’s brow furrowed as the rough texture and raised bumps caught him off-guard. Confused, he pushed the fabric of the shirt out of the way enough to get a good look, and then his eyes were on Billy’s face, seeking out answers.

“What happened?” he asked, quietly, some fear of what the answer could be bleeding into his face and voice.

Billy took a few deep breaths and false starts to say it. “To keep quiet when he… when Jesse… _finished_ , he used to bite…”

He trailed off. Freddy’s face went blank, which was genuinely unsettling given Freddy was the most expressive person Billy had ever known. A huge part of what had drawn Billy to him when he’d first arrived was the charming lack of a filter on his emotions and how he could grin or laugh in a split second. Supervillains and demons hadn’t been enough to shock him into silence, either. It took Billy a second to process his reaction. In the time he’d spent in the Vasquez house, he’d never seen Freddy angry on his behalf – angry _at_ him when he was telling Captain Inconsistent Name to stop being a dick, once, but that was somehow different. There was real fire in the way he looked back at the sloppy, overlapping rows of deep bite marks, at the scars that said without words that yes, Jesse had broken the skin. He’d drawn blood, again and again. In the dream, his shoulder had felt iced over, as it often had in real life as his mind blocked out the pain to keep him sane.

Freddy splayed his hand out over the marred skin, fingers blessedly hot against Billy’s cold skin, breathing life and heat back into him. The breadth of his hand couldn’t contain the damage. Still, it was comforting. Billy hadn’t expected him to want to touch that part of him. Then again, Freddy hadn’t expected it the first time Billy had reached over and gently rubbed at his leg, working tension out of the sore muscles. _Why the shit do we keep doubting each other?_ _Wow, we’re stupid,_ he thought, before his boyfriend interrupted that train of thought by leaning forward and kissing him. Being kissed gently by an angry person was a weird thought. It was good, though. He felt safe, cared about, and like he could pass out and Freddy would catch him.

“Is your other shoulder…?” Freddy trailed off when Billy nodded. He took a deep breath before stepping closer and putting his other arm around Billy gently. “Come here.”

He almost didn’t want to. An echo of the dream lingered still in his mind, making his body tense and his fists clench. But he forced himself to not pull away. He wasn’t on the verge of a panic attack, he was feeling something else, something less reality-breaking, so he could do this. Billy let himself wrap an arm around Freddy’s waist. The simple touch was deeply rewarding and grounding, making the room come into sharper focus. He was here. He was safe. Freddy was right here beside him and Freddy Freeman wasn’t the kind of person who let anyone hurt the people he loved. For a moment they simply gazed at one another, lost in a moment whose significance was impossible to convey.

Then, giving Billy plenty of time to pull away if he wanted to, Freddy moved in to put his lips to Billy’s neck. He brushed over the skin like a ghost, touch feather-light. All the same, Billy inhaled sharply, surprised by his own body’s response. He knew this was his surefire turn-on. How Freddy knew it was less clear to him. It didn’t matter. What left him almost dizzy with delight was that he wasn’t afraid or anxious or filled with dread. Two months ago he couldn’t discuss sex without throwing up. Now Freddy was kissing his neck, one arm wrapped around his back to steady him and the other preoccupied with touching a spot on Billy he’d never deliberately asked anyone to touch before, and he was okay. He was okay, period.

He was still exhausted as hell, though. Stepping back, he placed a hand over Freddy’s on his shoulder, keeping it there for a little bit longer. “It’s four in the morning. We need – I mean, I’d like…”

“Yeah. It’s fine, Thundercrack, I get it.” Freddy tugged him into bed, grinning like an idiot. “Ugh, I’m a sap and I hate it. Or I think I should hate it, right? This is way more shoujo manga than superhero comic.”

 _I knew it. Of course he’s been reading manga with Darla._ “Do those romance manga things have endings where things aren’t a shitshow?” Billy asked sleepily, curling up against him and feeling whatever energy he’d briefly had leave him. “’Cause superhero comics never have this stuff work out for long and… I’m bad at sticking around, but I don’t wanna be a three issue special in your life.”

“Yeah,” Freddy said, much more seriously. “Yeah, they have happy endings. And we will, too. We’ll be okay. I’ve got your back, now. You’re not alone. And I’ll kick the asses of anybody who tries to mess with you. It’ll be okay, Billy.”

Billy nodded. He wanted to believe him, so he did, as much as he could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dream Jesse is not 100% accurate to real Jesse.
> 
> The boys are aware sleeping in the same bed is a sappy romance trope but they don't care and neither do I. Give Billy Batson Cuddle 2k19.


	27. Tried/Missed/Hurt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy grieves and mourns.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A small, short chapter I couldn't fold into the other writing I've got going for the next chapter. I hope it still furthers the story and holds up in terms of quality. I'd like to apologize for the delay between chapters, as I was busily getting prepared to move, then moving, then getting everything set up and unpacked. Thank you to everyone for your patience, your support and your incredibly valuable honest and emotional feedback. The way people respond to this fanfic is truly inspiring to me; you are all the best writing motivation that could be asked for.

Billy didn’t comment on the new plant in Dr. Malloy’s office, he just gave him a look. 

Malloy shrugged, unrepentant. He wore a cactus print tie today, less because he liked to dress formal and more because it was a plant on a thing. Billy hadn’t ever really figured out the concept of fashion or even what he liked. Mary and Shay had learned that over the course of trying to take him shopping; he didn’t know his own clothing sizes, what he liked, what he needed or what his favorite color was. They’d eventually figured out that last point – apparently red was his favorite color – but it had taken half an hour. Everything else, though, was new to him. He’d always worn whatever he could steal or, more often, what Jesse had stolen or bought for him at different points.

_(“Why the hell don’t you have a coat?” asked the white-blond boy Billy had just been told he was rooming with. His grey eyes were narrowed, brow furrowed in confusion. “It’s zero degrees out there, Jesus freaking Christ…”_

_Billy shrugged, biting his lip and looking at the floor. He studied the pattern of the carpet, unwilling to admit how much the cold sucked when he was looking for his mom. Seven was old enough not to need anybody’s help. He didn’t need a coat. Coats just got caught on fences when he tried to climb them, anyway, so whatever. And if he’d cried a little when he outgrew the coat he’d worn back when he was with his mom, well, nobody had to know now, right? He wasn’t a little kid anymore. Billy was tough, or at least, he wanted to be._

_Lost in his thoughts, he didn’t notice the other boy getting up and rummaging through his dresser until he placed a tan colored suede jacket around his shoulders. “Here; it’s a little big, but it’ll work.”_

_“Oh. Um, thanks.” The seven year old pulled the sleeves around himself like a blanket, inhaling the suede scent that reminded him, he thought, of that vague foggy memory he had of his dad. “I like it.”_

_“Cool. I’m Jesse, by the way. Jesse Dobrescu.”_

_“Billy. Billy Batson.”)_

There was more to it, of course. He hadn’t ever gotten into music, because he was always looking for his mom and pawned any cellphone or MP3 player given to him for cash to pursue her nearly instantly. The music he recalled from his preteen years was Jesse’s. AFI, Swervedriver, Catherine Wheel, Hawthorne Heights, KoRn, and Seether made up virtually all of Jesse’s music library and thus became the soundtrack for Billy’s life a lot of the time, much as he didn’t actually like most of it. He was never really sure what kinds of movies or cartoons he liked, just that if Jesse said something was garbage it probably was. At no point did the older boy ever actively control what he watched or listened to, he simply managed to accidentally shape and form those things for Billy by proximity. No other kids ever got close enough to Billy for them to influence him. How could they, when he was planning to leave before he even arrived?

He was still learning how to be himself. Through Pedro, he’d discovered his own musical tastes. With Eugene’s help, he’d started to figure out what games he liked, and which ones he was good at, too. Freddy was the first person he’d ever really been able to share comic books with – and for once, he wasn’t forced to either steal comics or read them in the store and leave, because Freddy let him browse through his whole collection whenever he wanted. Darla had gotten Billy to watch movies with her, though his enthusiasm for the singing girls anime and magical girl shows was limited. She could also give him pretty accurate summaries of cartoons he’d missed out on while engaged in his single-minded search for his mom. Darla was smart. She could analyze, summarize and explain everything.

None of them should have had to do any of that. He should have picked stuff up as he went along, like a normal kid, and instead he was spending all his time, money and effort on someone who’d left him on purpose.

And it was pretty messed up, but he’d honestly rather talk about Jesse than talk about his mom.

“Billy?” Malloy asked gently in what Billy had dubbed his Concerned Dad Voice. “Are you okay?”

“I guess. I just… I guess it just hit me that my life is weird.” He shrugged and dropped his backpack by the couch, collapsing onto it as he always did when he really, really didn’t want to look at his therapist while he talked. “Everything’s just – I feel like I’m behind on, uh, pretty much everything, because I spent so much time trying to find my mom.” He scrubbed at his face with a hand, sighing. “I might be rant-y today. Is it cool if I rant?”

“Of course. It’s helpful to you to get those feelings and thoughts out, and it helps me know what’s on your mind as a therapist.”

“Dude, I’m going to word-vomit, I’m not writing an essay about how I feel. This isn’t English class.”

Dr. Malloy cringed. “English class is an abomination unto the written word most of the time. Go ahead and vomit, figuratively or literally. Trash can’s right over there if you need it.”

Billy had learned a lot about himself in therapy. He’d learned he was bad at picking starting places for talking about things that mattered. He either didn’t talk about heavy stuff or overwhelmed Malloy with all of the stuff he could fit into a small session. Although Salem had tried to convince him his anxiety wasn’t healthy, it had taken until therapy to realize that the desire to bolt out of the house and run or skip school or just bail on everything entirely out of sheer panic wasn’t normal. Therapy had shown him that he was really bad at explaining why he loved Freddy; Malloy had insisted everyone was bad at verbalizing romantic feelings until at least their mid-thirties and seemed genuine enough to make it less awkward. The most important thing therapy had taught him, though, was that he was really exhausted and he’d never even realized it. He’d tried so hard to find his mom. Billy had fought for a happy ending that never came for ten years.

He was tired, a bone-deep tired that was cold and hollow. A lot of the time, he wanted to lay down and sleep without waking up. Billy didn’t have the energy to try to make friends at school, couldn’t push himself to remember names and hold conversations and joke around. Everything was such an _effort_ , from homework to hanging out, and he didn’t want to do anything. He had to because Eugene was the kid brother he’d never had, Darla was all the sunshine and optimism he wished he could be, Pedro was confident in his own introverted nature and supportive without pushing boundaries, Mary was always there in the background waiting for him to open up like a second mom, and Freddy…

The police report about Billy’s dad that Eugene dug up said that he’d been ready to kill himself out of guilt for what he’d done, but Marilyn had convinced him not to. He had stayed alive for her. Billy knew that if Freddy asked him to keep trying to be happy, he wouldn’t ever stop. And that was what Freddy did from the moment Billy met him: he tried to get him to loosen up and enjoy himself for once in his life. _He didn’t know me and he wanted me to be okay. He kept trying to get close to me when I basically told him to fuck off. That’s more than my own mom ever did for me._

“Shit,” he muttered, swiping at his eyes as tears welled up in them. “Ugh, my mind’s going in a dozen directions, sorry. Basically I wanted to talk about – and I know this sounds weird – I feel like I missed out on everything? Or I’m not at the same level as everyone? I never got to get way too into cartoons or Disney movies or whatever like other kids. When I’m at school people will talk about shows they watch on Netflix and I never had Netflix until I moved in with the Vasquezes. Or maybe I did, but I never had time to watch. I never had time to get into Billie Eilish or… or… or whoever people are into. I don’t know what people are into! I never slept over at a friend’s house, I never hung out with other kids like a normal person, I have no idea what I want to do when I’m older because I never thought about that.

All I ever thought about was my mom. I gave up all that for her. I let people _choke me_ for her! I sold everything I ever owned for her – you know I barely know how to text and I don’t know how to use hardly anything else on my own phone? Every phone ever I got, I spun into funds to go look for her. And I don’t want to hate her. That’s how you end up a supervillain, you hang onto shit and don’t move on and it makes you this envious demonic weirdo, but… but I… I tried, I really did, and when you try that hard people aren’t supposed to throw you away _a second time_ and… and…”

Malloy knelt by the couch and handed him tissues. When Billy’s rubbing at his eyes turned to something closer to clawing, he grabbed the boy’s hands to keep him from hurting himself. Other than that, though, he said and did nothing, simply stayed beside him while he cried so hard it hurt, it physically ached. His breathing ran ragged and his shoulders shook. In his perfect dream life he would have had his mom with him to help him through rough patches. Sometimes, when he’d worried his mom was dead like Jesse’s parents had turned out to be, he had consoled himself by believing that Jesse would be there for him. Instead the only person standing by him right now was Dr. Malloy. He became dimly aware that the man was hovering, concerned, and wondered why he cared. Was it because he was paid to? Did he actually care? Did anyone? _Could_ anyone?

He felt guilty for thinking that. People did care, he knew they cared, and that made him missing his mom profoundly stupid. Why couldn’t he be happy with the people he had in his life now?

“There’s nothing wrong with being hurt when someone is cruel to you, Billy. You’re right, you missed out on vital childhood experiences and that’s hurtful, too. You’ve been dedicated to her in a way that’s absolutely admirable. Anyone would be proud to have you as a son.” Malloy winced when Billy’s crying resumed, but kept speaking. “You have a right to feel like this. I won’t tell you it’ll all be okay because it takes a long time to recover from this, but you’re not wrong to mourn what you missed or grieve for what could have been. None of this is your fault. I can’t tell you magic words that will get your mother to come around; no one has those words. I _can_ tell you, though, that your parents now love you. They’re proud of you. I’m proud of you, for how far you’ve come. And when you’re done mourning and grieving, we’ll all be there for you.”

It was probably weird to hug your therapist, but Billy did it anyway, and Malloy, after an awkward pause, let him.


	28. he holds the gun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Discussions are had and an insight is gained between Billy and Mary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW/CW for referenced/implied incest in Mary's backstory. It's so vaguely hinted at that Billy doesn't catch onto it, but the readers might if you've read the last chapter Mary was in prominently and the idea is still worth warning for.
> 
> This chapter was written in an Uber whilst getting last second stuff done for my upcoming return to college and may have errors. I scanned through it and I think it's fine, but let me know if you catch any.

Billy dragged himself out of bed with a significant amount of effort, despite the desire to curl up and stay there all Saturday.

He was running on empty a lot lately. If he weren’t trying to be a good brother, he’d have stayed in bed trying not to think until Monday rolled around. The thing he’d realized over the course of fighting Sivana and becoming an honest-to-God superhero, though, was that life wasn’t about him. Life was about people. Right now, that person in specific was Eugene, because as much as Billy understood Eugene’s desire to go hang out with his pseudo-girlfriend, he didn’t trust for a second that it wouldn’t backfire.

The really fucked up thing was that she probably genuinely meant no harm. That was uncomfortably familiar to Billy, that confusion between touch and love until they became the same thing. He hadn’t been able to separate the two when he was dating Salem. Billy was bad at feelings. Freddy was slightly better due to having read a lot of comics on the subject, but Billy was usually the last person anyone would want on hand for this. Yet, he could see Eugene’s faulty thinking and his friend’s blurred lines perfectly clearly. It was too late to keep his own life from getting weird – on many, many levels – but he could still shut this down right away, if he acted quickly and tried to sound like he knew what the hell he was saying.

Victor had agreed to take Eugene to visit his girlfriend-friend-whatever and Billy was distinctly displeased. Distance was better. It wasn’t a codependent thing (as Dr. Malloy called it) yet and it could be cut off. Seeing as Eugene could run circles around them in tech, though, he’d probably find a way to use that and his superhero powers to duck over to visit her even if they tried to stop it.

Still, he had to try. Nobody was there to try on his behalf, once upon a time.

“Hey, um, Victor? Can we talk?” Billy watched him make pancakes with startling proficiency, stomach churning at the sight. He never had an appetite when he was nervous. “It’s about Eugene’s whole, uh, thing.”

Mary gave Victor a look that clearly asked ‘do you need me to leave’. She wasn’t thrilled about Eugene and Lina meeting up, but she’d been right there beside him to play Minecraft and talk to him when he needed it. She was a good big sister and as much as Billy wasn’t clued in on how families worked, it was clear she was concerned.

“You can stay,” Victor said to her, and Billy nodded at her. “What did you want to talk about, Billy?”

He decided to be blunt. “I don’t think seeing Lina again is a good move. Like, I… I think I would’ve been a lot less messed up if I didn’t keep running into Jay in foster homes all the time. If we hadn’t hung out so much, maybe I could’ve…” _Been less obsessed with finding my mom if I weren’t around a guy obsessed with finding his parents. Been less well-versed in stealing and blowjobs and how to pawn anything and everything I ever owned._ “I could’ve been a lot less messed up. This is a bad idea.”

“You don’t _know_ that she’s going to do anything again, Billy,” his foster father replied, voice serious and eyes contemplative. “I think if she has more normal interactions with people her own age, that could be a really good thing for her. And Eugene’s never had a friend his own age since he entered the foster care system. This could be good for both of them, so long as someone’s there to supervise things.”

“Kids are creative,” Mary pointed out, not unkindly. “Supervision’s a hard thing. Billy has a point.”

 _Thanks, Mary_ , he thought, shooting her an appreciative look. “See? Mary gets it. I think we should go to the cops or CPS or whoever and get Lina out of where she is. If whoever is hurting her is there, she’s safer somewhere else-”

“Absolutely _not_ ,” his sister said, with such force her brother and foster father both turned to stare at her. She bit her lip and took a deep breath. “You don’t know for sure she’s safer somewhere else. Or that she won’t just go try to find him again or he won’t go try to find her.”

Victor flipped the last pancake over, trying to look casual and mostly looking concerned. “Mary, this isn’t Villanova. There are good people in Social Services in Narberth who could watch over her.”

 _What does Villanova have to do with anything?_ Billy decided not to ask. Though Dr. Malloy had shown him the paper Mary had signed saying that yes, she’d given him permission to delve into her past if it helped Billy, he still wasn’t comfortable with the idea. He was even more uncomfortable with the idea of asking about her deal directly. Mary had always been the one of his foster siblings who had her shit together. She had a 4.0 GPA, a good selection of colleges to go to, scholarships, a wonderful girlfriend and a lot more maturity than the rest of them. The idea of someone so strong and badass having damage was weird to him. Whatever she had to do with the wealthiest neighborhood in the whole state, that was her business and not his.

“So you’re taking his side?” she asked, a flat note of disbelief in her voice.

“I’m not on anyone’s side. I think Billy has a point, but it’ll be better if we build trust with Lina so she can come to us directly with the name of whoever’s hurting her. Going to CPS and getting this put on her record as the aggressor might hurt her long-term prospects for adoption. So,” he started, but Mary cut him off.

 “If whoever’s hurting her has a good record, she’ll get labeled a liar and a problem kid and you know what _that_ does to a girl’s adoption prospects.”

 _(“Kids have an expiration date in the foster care circuit,” Jesse said quietly, staring at the picture he kept of his parents. His mom was beautiful, with diamond blonde hair and skin even lighter than his, a gentle smile as she cradled a toddler Jesse in her arms. “All we have is our blood. To everybody else, we have to give them reasons_ not _to throw us away. And when people catch on that something’s not okay…”_

_He’d been really close to being adopted. The younger boy hadn’t asked why he was back in the system when he came home to see Jesse moving back in, and he didn’t ask now. He just tugged Jesse into a hug and held on tight as his boyfriend struggled not to cry.)_

Billy had the distinct feeling they weren’t talking about Lina anymore. His first impulse was to get out of this conversation, out of what was clearly a family matter. Victor and Mary had always been close, more like real father and daughter than almost any foster parent and kid Billy had ever seen. He didn’t want to intrude on this. Then it hit him that he qualified as family now and should probably be saying or doing something. He had no idea what, though. Glancing at Victor for guidance, he saw that their foster father looked as sympathetic and uncomfortable as Billy felt. Much as he didn’t want to think about whatever was going on in Mary’s past when she’d worked so hard to overcome it and put it in the past, he had a guess now. _Whoever hurt her was rich. He or they bought their way out of charges or maybe just called her crazy, and I guess that could happen to Lina, but… I still need to get that kid out of danger. That’s what a hero does, right? A hero helps people even if they’ve hurt his family._

_A hero doesn’t abandon people.  
_

“What if we all vouched for her, though?” he asked her, walking over to put a hand on her shoulder like Victor and Rosa usually did for him. “Victor and Rosa are adults with really good records and we could all confirm whatever we need to if the CPS worker asked any of us.”

Mary snorted bitterly. “Money can make that not matter, Billy.”

Seeing her be so cynical was disconcerting, but he took the route of staying beside her and doubling down on Victor’s earlier statement. “Nobody has the money to make something serious go away there if we go with Victor’s plan. It’ll be different than, um, whatever your deal is – uh, Malloy hasn’t told me and I don’t wanna ask if it’s super painful – because we’ve got more people involved in this. We got this. Seriously. This is Narberth we’re talking about, not Villanova.”

He could picture Mary in Villanova. Even with unshed tears in her eyes and her shoulders tensed, she looked beautiful the way girls there were, too-perfect and that typical combination of pale, dark haired and dark eyed. In some other life, he could see her with the fancy hairdos Shay liked to get her to try, some designer clothes and one of those obnoxiously opulent houses uptown. A year ago he would have hated her for being rich and hated her more for leaving somewhere in the lap of luxury, because a year ago, he was too self-centered to understand that some things weren’t worth money. A year ago Billy Batson was an idiot. He wouldn’t have thought anything bad went on in Villanova, where everyone wore nice clothes and families had summer vacations abroad and went up to Maine or across the country to Colorado to ski in the winter. Mary had probably gone to a private school with pristine security and a fully funded arts program and God knew what else. Billy used to hate kids from her part of town.

Now he tried to picture what it was like to be her: scared, abused, aware that her abuser was rich and powerful and probably had a great reputation on top of that. And to anyone she reached out to, even Billy before he became a superhero and stopped being such a dick, she’d look like a whiny rich girl. It was her word against that of a world of millionaires and old money that didn’t want to believe anything was wrong. She’d been tried in the court of public opinion before she ever said a word, and found the actual courts operated more on money than justice. All of that was awful. All of that made her pristine clothes and private school and giant house cages. And unlike him, she couldn’t just run away. There wasn’t anyone to pull a Jesse and teach Mary to pick locks, hop fences and spot cameras.

She’d had to save herself, and somehow she had. Billy hadn’t ever processed that when Malloy hinted at it, because she seemed so over it all. Mary always seemed like she had her life together from the second Billy saw her on the phone talking to a college recruiter. Now he saw that there was still damage there underneath the positive attitude and nurturing nature.

Or maybe the damage was the reason _why_ she had the positive attitude and nurturing nature. That was certainly how things had worked out for Salem, just not with the rich background. The world was awful so they tried hard not to add to that.

Mary deserved her superpowers. The wizard should’ve picked her as the Champion.

“…what are you doing?” she asked, too confused to be annoyed as Billy wrapped his arms around her.

“Pulling a Darla. Is it working?” He looked up at her, face deadly serious. “I know Malloy and Malloy knows people. We kind of know Superman. Victor and Rosa know tons of people in the system. Things are gonna be okay. And one day, whoever did whatever to you is going to get his ass kicked by karma or superheroes or Rosa with a purse on a bad day. Gandhi said that.”

In spite of everything, she laughed, waving off Victor’s baffled expression by mouthing ‘inside joke’, and ruffled his hair. “You’re a good brother, Billy.”

“I ate all your Pop Tarts last night and framed Pedro,” he confessed. She snorted and wiped at her eyes, where tears had been forming.

“Yeah, well, you’re still good, you little loser.”

And it was not enough to fix things, past or future, was not enough to undo the damage of having people they would have died for stab them in the back, but it was _enough_ , in the ways they needed it to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title comes from the lyrics of Murder Song (5 4 3 2 1) by Aurora. The way abuse is framed in that song, with the victim insisting to herself the person who hurt her didn't mean to, and the implication the abuser felt the same way, is relevant to the story in a way. Worth a listen, if you're interested.
> 
> Villanova is a real neighborhood in Philly and it is the most uncomfortably rich and too-wholesome thing I've ever seen.


	29. Scorpion Stinger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Intimacy, in two very different forms, with two very different people.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Freddy and Billy have a somewhat sexually charged moment in this, and there's a reference to Jesse and Billy's past physical acts (though nothing is described in detail), so if underage characters' sexualities are a trigger for you, this might be a chapter you shouldn't engage with. Please practice safe reading and take care of your wellbeing.

_“Here,” Jesse said, handing him a box. “You deserve it.”  
_

_Billy blinked, confused, until he remembered it was his birthday. He was eight now, which meant he’d been separated from his mom for three and a half years. The thought made him sad, but Jesse had promised to go through his social worker’s file cabinet and see if he could find anything. Maybe he’d find another Batson somewhere out there and they’d know Billy’s mom, or maybe they’d find her right away, who knew? He was sure it’d go faster with somebody else helping out. Now he just had to be patient._

_He didn’t particularly want to be patient, but the cake Jesse had gotten him was a pretty good distraction. Or, no – he squinted at it – it was a Boston cream pie, the chocolate slightly smeared into the top of the box but otherwise perfectly intact. More importantly, it was an entire thing he didn’t have to share with any of the other kids. For a minute, he stared at it like an idiot. Then he set the pie on the desk in his room and jumped up to hug Jesse. The blond locked up for a moment, tensing, before he relaxed and wrapped his arms around Billy in return._

_“I didn’t know what kind of toys you like, so I got food,” he explained as Billy babbled the word ‘thank you’ again and again on repeat. “Don’t know if you like chocolate, but-”_

_“I love it!” Billy beamed up at him. “How did you get it in without anybody seeing? Is it really_ all _for me?”_

 _“Yeah, it is, and my sneaking techniques are a secret, Bill.” He added in a stage whisper, “I might teach you some of those techniques if we get to share the cake, though. I_ did _bring two forks, just saying…”_

_He pretended to think about it, going ‘hmm’ and crossing his arms, but couldn’t keep himself from chuckling when Jesse pouted at him. They both glanced towards the door instinctively. Hours were strictly enforced in some foster homes, and while one kid being up might not get in trouble, two usually did. Fortunately the rain seemed to be working in their favor tonight. Outside, it poured down in true spring fashion, loud as drums, drowning out whatever they got up to in their room on the top floor of the house. Tonight, that meant cake and hanging out and maybe, just maybe, have a decent birthday. Jesse fiddled with the ancient boombox on the shelf, tweaking the volume until it was quiet enough not to get them in trouble and letting the drone of some local pop station wash over them. It was comfortable, homey, enough for Billy to feel almost okay with being away from his mom for yet another birthday._

_They didn’t have plates, since sneaking anything breakable upstairs was asking for disaster, so they sat on the bed and ate cake with their forks, watching the traffic outside. There wasn’t much to do. There wasn’t any need to do anything other than relax, with Jesse occasionally humming along to the music and Billy happily gorging himself on way more cake than any kid should be allowed to have. Maybe it was too much sugar to be healthy, but he was pretty sure that sugar was energy, so hopefully that’d make the long walk to school easier tomorrow._

_“When’s your birthday?” Billy asked when Jesse paused to get soda for them out of his backpack. “I’m gonna get you something awesome!”_

_“November first,” he sighed, rolling his eyes. “You don’t have to get me anything, though. I’m fine. Besides, by then you’ll be back with your mom and I’ll be back with mine and my… dad.”_

_Young as he was, Billy missed the hesitation and aside glance. “What’s your mom like? Mine’s blonde and pretty and gives really good hugs, and she sings along to the radio all the time and drives a blue car my dad fixed for her.”_

_He repeated those facts to himself often. He needed to. Billy was always freaked out when he saw people who didn’t have memories left of their parents or families, knowing it would be easy to end up like that himself. His memories of his dad were already basically gone; how long did he have before he forgot his mom, and how sad would that make her when she finally found him? Billy did what he could to remember everything, even things he hadn’t been there for, like his dad fixing up a blue, 1989 Toyota Tercell for her. Every little detail was a piece of her that he could carry with him wherever he went._

_“My mom is blonde, too, but it’s more white,” the older boy said thoughtfully, chewing his food slowly. “She has scars on her right hand from when a snake bit her when she was little, which is kind of badass, and she likes horror movies. One time, I got so scared watching one with her that I threw myself over the top of the couch to get away from it.”_

_Billy laughed, then choked on his food. Jesse helpfully hit him on the back until he was able to swallow. “Really? You got scared? But you’re_ you _!”_

 _Jesse tilted his head, looking at Billy fondly. While he would never, ever say it, he liked being thought of as a badass on par with his mom. He loved it when he did something that other people would be too afraid to do, when he did something people said he couldn’t, and when he shocked people. That was part of why he had all kinds of stories of the things he’d done to share with Billy and all the other kids. It was also why, when Jesse gave advice and told someone not to do something, they listened – if something was so bad that_ Jesse _wouldn’t do it, then they knew not to try whatever it was. To Billy, the older boy seemed fearless, fun and unshakable._

_In spite of that, though, he nodded and leaned in to whisper to Billy, “I hate horror movies. They scare me, especially ones with gore. But my mom? Nothing scares her. Sometimes, she laughs at them.”_

_“Wow.” The eight year old was suitably impressed. “Is your dad like that, too?”_

_“Dunno. He had to work so much I never really got to hang out with him,” he admitted, shrugging and dropping his gaze to the box inbetween them. “He gave me a real scorpion, though, encased in amber. Wanna see?”_

_Of course he did. He was an eight year old boy and Jesse had a scorpion, holy crap! He nearly fell off the bed trying to scoot closer as Jesse pulled the keychain out of his pocket. Indeed, encased in amber was an honest-to-God scorpion, with pinchers and a tail and everything. He reached out for it, paused, then carefully took it in both hands when Jesse relented and handed it to him. Billy held it up to the light to observe the weird yet cool thing in full._

_“One day I’m gonna have a pet scorpion just like this.” Decision made, Billy handed it back to him. “Then if it dies, I’ll carry it with me forever.”_

_“You’re morbid, kid,” Jesse said, but he was smiling as he pulled him into a one-armed hug. “Happy birthday, Bill.”_

_And it was._

 

* * *

 

 

Freddy could have kicked himself. He’d changed in the same room as Billy multiple times, and he’d never noticed the scarring.

Billy had always been lightning fast at changing clothes. Foster kids had to be – places to go, Social Services agents to meet with, other kids to play with. A lot of kids lived their lives in a rush and so Billy’s quick movements had registered as a side effect of living in crowded foster homes, and Freddy hadn’t ever caught on. Now that he was thinking about it, though, he’d never seen Billy change shirts in front of him. Whenever he changed, he was so quick and so careful to keep his back to Freddy that it hadn’t ever hit him just what was there. _I can’t believe I didn’t see it. I’m such a doofus._

Freddy prided himself on his wealth of useless knowledge. He knew all kinds of random facts, and knew how to research things. So he dug into the internet to try to figure out if there was a way to get Jesse thrown in jail now that there was obvious physical evidence of damage. God, he hated the blond boy, for every little way his impact on Billy was still evident. The way Billy tensed sometimes in the middle of making out, his constant reassurances of ‘I’m fine’ and long silences, his aversion to soda ( _he messed up something as normal as drinking Coke for Billy oh my GOD-_ ) and more were all aftershocks of the time he’d spent with the older boy. His life was impacted on a day to day basis and it burned Freddy up inside. He’d never hated someone before. He hated Jesse. He wanted to put him behind bars without a chance of parole, get him transferred to a prison far away from Billy and then let other inmates beat him to death.

Too much time had passed for a medical exam to prove the bitemarks belonged to any individual. DNA evidence was long gone and, when Freddy thought about it, Billy had been in and out of so many foster homes so quickly he probably hadn’t gone to an actual pediatrician in years. It would be easy for Jesse to say the scarring hadn’t happened when he was around… assuming Freddy could even get Billy to try to press any kind of charges to begin with. He’d never expressed any desire to see Jesse arrested for anything, because Billy wasn’t a vengeful person. Billy didn’t hate his mom despite all he’d done for her and how she’d thrown him away. He didn’t hate _anyone_ , as far as Freddy could tell. All he wanted to do was walk away from the past and all Freddy wanted to do was somehow make sure that went smoothly.

Mostly, that meant trying to play it cool. They spent the day together binge watching all the original trilogy Star Wars films, helping Darla taste test her cake pops (she was a great cook, no matter what she said), and just chilling. As much as the situation with Eugene worried him, he was okay so long as he had people around to keep him grounded in the present. While he drew the line at watching yet another pirated musical Pedro had acquired, he was happy enough to let Darla join her brother in that and just go for a walk with Freddy instead. Talking about school, the nightmare that was their homework and whether or not it was safe to use their cellphones while on patrol as superheroes was normal, or as normal as things got for them, anyway. Billy didn’t need Freddy to have some big emotional heart to heart with him. He needed somebody to chill out with for once without the past looming over him, and Freddy, for all his newness to dating, could give that to him.

Things got slightly weird once they got back to the house and more specifically, to their room. He knew it was wrong to watch Billy undress, but he couldn’t help it that Saturday night. The mood was still mellow. Billy wasn’t freaking out or rushing himself through the motions of undressing for once. He was quiet, thinking, biting his lip as he turned over options in his head, gripping the hem of his shirt. Their eyes met for a long moment, and then Billy took his shirt off and shut his eyes, holding it tightly in his hands, wringing the fabric nervously. He was waiting for a reaction. Freddy wasn’t sure what the right one was, or what the romantic one was, either. It sucked to see him hurting. But it was good, too, that Billy was able to show him this and that he was close enough Freddy could protect him from now on, keep him safe like a real hero.

 _I’m so  sappily in love with this dork,_ he thought, a realization that made him smile and step closer. _If he ever needs me to beat someone up for him like he beat up bullies for me, I’m on it._ Freddy had never had that before, that kind of protective, snarky presence in his life. Billy cared about him and defended him without babying him or looking at him like he was weak for his disability. He saw Freddy in a way nobody else did. And Freddy saw him, too.

On impulse, he reached out and touched Billy’s shoulder, fingers skimming over the skin, waiting for him to say if he wasn’t cool with this. Sharing a room had never felt weird before, but once it hit him they were hidden away from everybody else and it was just them, Freddy found himself struck by how romantic this set up was. Was this romantic? Probably, since Billy was looking at him _that way_ , with intensity and heat that made the other boy turn red-faced. He ran his hands over Billy’s shoulders, rubbing the damaged skin gently with his thumbs, making small circles, and stepped closer. He wanted to kiss him. So he did.

Billy kissed him back and it was so, so good to know that he wasn’t freaking out, that he was okay. They were alright. Maybe Freddy wasn’t the most skilled kisser, but his boyfriend didn’t care and neither did he. Billy’s arms wrapped around his waist, tugging him in closer, lips soft and hot and tongue caressing its’ way into Freddy’s mouth. Freddy was only vaguely aware of the fact that his eyes had closed in contentment, one hand moving lower to gingerly rub over one of Billy’s nipples. He huffed out a quiet, surprised breath, but didn’t pull away or stop kissing him, which was the encouragement Freddy needed to let his fingers explore more freely. The internet hadn’t ever really clarified to him what to do when it came to this sort of thing; he was almost completely sure he was going to mess this up, and yet his more experienced boyfriend made a low, pleased little sound in the back of his throat when Freddy squeezed his nipple lightly.

“Harder,” Billy murmured, then blushed as he realized he’d said that out loud. “Um, I mean, if you’re alright with-”

Freddy cut him off by doing as he asked, and Billy breathed out a hushed groan. Keeping eye contact with Freddy, head resting against his, he careful rubbed the palm of his hand over Freddy’s crotch and drank in the reaction with critical eyes. Freddy could practically _feel_ him trying to evaluate if this was okay or not, but it was, God, it was so good and the fact it was _Billy_ made it better. Billy, who was cool and kind and there for him in a way nobody else had ever been, was touching him and kissing him and Freddy didn’t have words to describe what that made him feel. They were making out, they were grinning like total saps, they were hard, and the fact that someone actually found _him_ , Freddy Freeman, the weird kid and the cripple, worth getting hard for was just…

Billy kissed him on the cheek, a dorky soft gesture that made Freddy grin. “Hey, uh, you remember when I said I’d blow you?”

“Yeah,” Freddy squeaked, suddenly more turned on than he’d ever been in his life. _Oh my God this is actually happening._ “If we’re going to, I, um, I could, uh, return the favor, if you want…?”

“Oh.” Billy seemed almost surprised, pausing as his hand slid under the waistband of Freddy’s pants and just about broke Freddy’s brain on the spot. “Nobody’s ever done that, for me. You don’t have to. I don’t want you to think you owe me, or whatever.”

“I want to. I’ll probably be kinda bad at it,” he admitted, grinning in self-deprecation, “but I want to, ‘cause it’s you. And maybe since nobody’s ever done that for you, you won’t realize how terrible I am at it anyway!”

He grinned and cringed at the same time. “Romantic as ever, Freddy.” He gestured with his head to the bed, eyes dark with desire. “C’mon, before someone-”

“Billy!” Rosa called from downstairs. “Can you come down here for a second? I need to talk to you.”

Freddy groaned and buried his face in his hands as Billy, shrugging apologetically, stepped away. “It’s like she’s got some kind of Mom Sense that lets her know when to intervene. Like the Spider Sense, but for cockblocking.”

“We share a room,” Billy pointed out with a snort. “There’ll be other chances, seriously. Don’t worry about it. And, uh… thanks. For saying you would – you know.”

“Um, yeah,” he muttered, red-faced at the idea as Billy threw a shirt on and left the room, careful to the door behind him. It was only when Freddy sat on the bed to scream into his pillow in frustration that the realization hit him.

 _…I thought he said he did ‘everything’ when he was ten?_ Brow furrowing, he thought that over and instantly felt the mellow, mushy, vaguely sweet mood he’d been in die. _Maybe he meant he – shit, did Jesse_ make _him blow him and then didn’t do it back? That’s sick. What kind of guy would…_ He cut off his own train of thought. Freddy knew exactly what kind of guy would do that, and it was the same kind of guy who was fine getting off with a ten year old. Fury rose up in him again, intense and overwhelming. He wanted to go superhero and then beat the shit out of Jesse. He could. No one would be able to stop him. The only one who would be upset was Billy.

Billy, though, Billy wouldn’t be able to forgive him for that. He still had some kind of affection for the guy who’d put him through hell and while Freddy didn’t understand it, he believed it was real. Billy had loved Jesse.

The only comfort Freddy could find in the whole mess was that Billy loved him now, and he would never treat Billy like that.

And if Jesse ever showed his face here, Freddy would beat the shit out of him.


	30. Bonds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy and Darla bond. The past was complicated. Billy wants to be better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for a brief mention of eating disorders, one reference to homophobia, and discussion of Billy's budding, confusing sexuality, though I did everything I could not to make it too explicit.

Darla’s memories of her parents were shattered, tiny fragments she struggled to get a firm grasp on.

Billy had never asked her outright what happened to her parents. She would tell him if she wanted to, he figured, and he didn’t want to be one of those prying kids that inevitably made foster homes awkward. He’d seen those questions backfire, whether it was an older kid trying to relate to younger ones or younger kids asking innocently insensitive questions, or, once, Jesse trying to get Salem to argue with him.

( _“An apple for dinner? Seriously?” Jesse shot Salem an unimpressed look. “What_ is _it with you and food? What, it’s not enough to act ultra-Muslim like your mom, you’ve gotta starve yourself like her, too?”_

_Salem froze, eyes distant and thin body still, unable to speak, the answer to the question an obvious yes._

_Jesse winced, shaking his head. “Jesus Christ, I was kidding. I didn’t think – makes that picture you have of them make more sense, though.”_

_He hated Salem. Everyone knew he did. Billy in particular knew how mutual that disdain was, because he talked to both of them and there was no love lost there. But Jesse watched Salem visibly spiral downward mentally, apple uneaten in his hand, no longer chewing the one bite he’d taken, and something self-hating and guilty overtook his face. Glancing around for their foster parents, he dropped his backpack to the ground and pulled out a very large, very obviously stolen sandwich from the corner deli and put it in front of Salem._

_“…Dobrescu?” the Arab boy asked, too surprised and too weak from three days without food to put words together properly. “What are you doing?”_

_“Eat it and I won’t tell the Murphys where you throw your food out instead of eating it.” He folded his arms, looking uncomfortable with how Billy was staring at him in complete confusion and how Salem’s gaze flickered from the food to the blond again and again, unable to comprehend what was happening._

_“Is it halal?” he managed after a long, incredibly awkward silence._

_“Is starving yourself?” Jesse retorted. Salem flinched, but took the footlong and unwrapped it, forcing himself to take a bite._

_Jesse didn’t make any comments on Salem’s parents after that.)  
_

He wouldn’t dare risk upsetting Darla. Other people’s lives weren’t his business, either, and if she didn’t want him to know, that was her choice to make. Darla was here now, and she was a good sister, and that was all that mattered. He liked having a little sister. He hadn’t ever had someone try to be a little sister to him, since he was in and out of so many homes before any little kids could ever really get attached to him. Now that he had one, though, he was finding he didn’t mind as much as he’d thought he would. She was a little overbearing, endlessly energetic and had a fascination with glitter that made her hard to dislike. Billy wasn’t into girly things, but he could go along with them for Darla’s sake. He wanted her to be happy.

That didn’t mean he didn’t wonder about her. Over the course of his time in the Vasquez house, he’d learned that Darla had some memories. She liked boots with fur lining, plaid shirts, banana pancakes, cranberries, and the 70’s singer Joan Baez, and connected all of these things with her parents. Usually she couldn’t recall which of them any given thing was associated with, nor could she explain how she knew these things were connected to them, but she was surer of the connection than anything. Nobody questioned her. Whatever had happened to Darla’s parents, it was so bad no one would tell Billy any of it. It was bad enough that it made Pedro feel too sick to eat when it came up and bad enough Eugene would put down a game. So Darla’s mind had blocked out the entire incident, as well as almost everything that came before, for the sake of keeping her sane.

The one thing she remembered very clearly was her fifth birthday. Her father had taken them out to eat before they did a lengthy road trip into the mountains to go camping. She got to stay up late and make s’mores and make a fire, and it was amazing. Unfortunately, camping with as many kids as the Vasquez family had would be too time-consuming and too expensive to actually try. All they could promise her was that they’d try to make it so that they could all go out to eat together, maybe, probably. Money wasn’t super tight, but it wasn’t free-flowing in their house, either.

Much as he’d rolled his eyes at Salem sending him a gift card for the Middle Eastern restaurant he worked at, it was enough to cover him and Darla. She was thrilled and hugged the breath right out of him when he suggested it. _If anyone ever looks at her funny, I will beat them to death with my bare hands,_ he thought as she promised to make him a friendship bracelet. _Why didn’t the Wizard just make Darla the Champion?_

This was how he found himself guiding Darla through the Little Arabia neighborhood of Philly. While it didn’t hold a candle to the Little Arabia part of Detroit in terms of size, it was much more well organized, and the many trees and flowers made Darla smile. She actually knew a surprising amount of information about botany. Apparently she was a little interested in it, secretly, but was also torn by her interest in deep-sea marine biology. She also, over the course of the walk through the neighborhood, expressed an interest in languages,  world cuisine and clothing. “There’s so many cool things and amazing stuff on Earth,” she explained, looking thoughtful, “I don’t know what to read about first or most.”

“Make a list?” he suggested, trying to be helpful. “Then you could figure out what to look into from there.”

She nodded, instantly approving of the idea. “That might help. So, your friend lives here? Is he from the same place everybody else here is?”

“Everybody here is from everywhere,” he pointed out with a small smile. “Salem’s from, well, Salem. In Pennsylvania. But before that he lived in Qatar.”

“Cool! I wonder if he misses the heat. It gets really hot there – it was in a documentary I watched. Philly’s not the same. Plus, it’s really far away. Does he want to go visit, or is that too far away to do?”

Billy thought back to Salem’s complicated and frankly contradictory feelings about the place. Bootleg Bollywood movies everywhere, playing soccer in heat no human being should survive in and skinny dipping with other boys in the river, befriending various stray cats, being able to be Muslim without anyone being a jackass to him – there was a lot about Qatar Salem loved deeply. No doctors understanding his mom’s condition, continual judgment for having a dad who was mixed race, and the way Salem’s parents had panicked when they saw him cuddle up with a boy too much when he was eight, well… those were some very steep trade offs. _Did_ he want to go back? Billy couldn’t tell.

“I don’t think he has the money for that,” he said instead of a more honest answer, not wanting to bring Darla down with the complicated parts of the truth. “He has to work two jobs just to keep his fund for his apartment after he can't stay in the dorms going."

Darla frowned. Money wasn’t something she thought about a lot. Of all of them, while Eugene budgeted for video games, Mary had money anxiety from college, the rest just sort of winged it. Billy had no clue how honest money worked. Jesse had introduced him to shoplifting early on as a way to cut corners and make money last longer, and sometimes he found himself still clocking cameras and Loss Prevention workers in stores, but mostly Billy had poured his funds into finding his mom. Actually having money _to_ budget was weird. Being able to treat Darla to nice food was weird.

Weird didn’t mean bad, he decided, and let her hold his hand without complaint. This was weird as in new. Billy was pretty sure that with the Vasquez family, new usually meant good, even if good didn’t always mean comfortable. It was uncomfortable to have a huggy little sister, or a worried big sister, or a boyfriend who was permanent and new to romance. He wouldn’t give any of it up, though, because after the uncomfortable awkward moments where he didn’t know what he was doing, all of them left him with a warm, well-loved feeling, a bone-deep contentment that felt like home.

“Billy?” his sister asked, glancing at Salem as they entered the restaurant, “Can I get my hair done like his?”

“Uh, I dunno. Ask Victor and Rosa? I don’t know about hair.” He smiled as Darla bounced on her feet, looking around the small establishment in obvious delight. “Where do you wanna sit?”

“Booth!” she declared immediately, as if it were inherently the better idea. With a shrug, he followed her over as Salem, silent as a shadow, moved over to grab some menus for them. “Can I get dessert?”

“Later, yeah. I promised Victor and Rosa you’d eat actual food first.” He glanced up at Salem, who was smiling that you’re-a-sap-and-I-love-you smile at him. “Dude, don’t make it weird.”

“I didn’t say anything,” the older boy pointed out, handing Darla a menu. “So, you must be Billy’s new sister. Did he tell you his birthday’s coming up? He tries to hide it sometimes. Parties make him nervous.”

Billy groaned. “Sae, I _will_ tell her all the embarrassing stories I know about you.”

He shrugged. “I have no shame, so have at it.”

“Billy’s birthday is really close to mine, so we’re having a party for both of us,” Darla informed him, smiling at him even as her eyes lingered on his black, glittery nail polish. “And he’s taking me out to eat! He’s a good big brother.”

“And you’re a good sister,” Billy told her, sighing as she got up from her end of the booth to hug him. “Not – can you not do this in public, please?”

“We’re the only ones here,” she replied sagely, hugging away freely. “Salem, do you wanna get in the cuddle puddle?”

 He tried not to laugh. “Uh, _yeah_. Who wouldn’t?”

 Billy did his best to glare at both of them, but his heart wasn’t in it, and he couldn’t keep from smiling.

 

* * *

 

Malloy sipped from his pumpkin spice Italian soda and watched Billy pace, wondering if he should get another trash can in case he needed to throw up.

He’d learned working with Billy that it was best to let him start the session in terms of topic, most of the time. After that, he had to make sure to steer the session onto a single topic – Billy could hyperfixate on one aspect of a topic or spin one off into multiple queries and topics with alarming speed – and try to avoid letting him overload himself. Much as he appreciated the fact that Billy wanted to be honest with him, the fourteen year old had a habit of pushing himself too hard to get to things too quickly. _Having a patient who’s trying too hard to get well is a strange, novel experience,_ he noted, writing down a note that Billy seemed less anxious after he’d had a chance to get some movement in. Maybe walks were a good idea for anxiety management with Billy. It was something to ponder for later.

“I put the moves on my boyfriend, kind of,” Billy began, then turned red-faced as he sat down on the couch, burying his face in his hands. “Oh my God, I can’t believe I just said that.”

“You don’t have to share anything with me you don’t want to,” Malloy reminded him, reflecting on their first session with some wariness. “We’ve gone over this. Making yourself sick with anxiety benefits no one.”

“…it’s not that, it’s just. I don’t really know how to talk about this.” He took a deep breath, pausing to find the right words, and Malloy let him. “Maybe it’s more accurate to say he put the moves on me and I was way into it. And like, the thing I can’t believe is that I didn’t freak out? That’s so weird. But I wasn’t freaked out even a little bit, I was into it, and then we got interrupted and the moment was just… gone, after that. I’m shit at romance.”

Malloy smiled slightly, amused. “Billy, everyone’s had a moment ruined by someone. It’s not always possible to restart it. Actually, I think I’ve been able to restart precisely one moment like that in my entire life. You’re allowed to have things not go your way.”

Billy groaned and muttered ‘still’. That was fair enough, honestly. Nobody was ever particularly thrilled about this, let alone teenagers, for whom hormones were already skewed even without factoring in the abuse. “I, uh, I don’t know if I rushed it? Maybe I was rushing into it. Freddy seemed cool with it, but afterwards it was like, maybe I should’ve gone slower? Five seconds of foreplay and I was totally ready to go. Gross.”

“Why do you say that? Why is it gross?”

“I don’t know, it’s what comes to mind? I feel… easy. Jay used to put his hands under my shirt and get me worked up before I even knew what being worked up was. Salem found out he could get me hard by going for the neck on accident – and he was super embarrassed, ‘cause he was still in that ‘is it wrong to be gay’ stage, he didn’t push me to do anything after that and he tried not to do it again. But I don’t like that I can go from zero to a hundred like that. It feels like I’m not in control of myself and that _sucks_.”

“Billy, I’m going to tell you something that you might not necessarily like, but it’s the truth: no one is ever fully in control of how their body reacts to something. What you _are_ in control of is how you choose to act once you’re worked up, and ideally, your partner should respect your wishes at that point. Salem overstepped what he was comfortable with and you didn’t push him to keep going – you told me once you only argued with him when you hadn’t been physical, because it felt wrong otherwise, even when you were arguing for more physical contact. That’s very good, and very responsible of you. Freddy didn’t push you for more than you wanted, and doesn’t dislike the speed at which you got into it. So long as everyone is on the same page, so long as you’re both alright with it and you can trust that your partner would stop if you needed him to, there’s nothing wrong with this morally.”

He put his hands in his pockets, still red-faced. This kind of talk was never not embarrassing on some level for teenagers, and in Malloy’s opinion, that was completely fine. This was still new to him in terms of having someone to talk to about it. Things took time. “I trust him. I just don’t know if I’m ready to actually do it with him. I thought I was, when we were making out, but afterwards, I just… I kind of feel like maybe we shouldn’t, just yet. I still feel bad about the whole Salem thing and thinking if he loved me he’d touch me more. I don’t wanna do that with Freddy. I’m trying to be a good guy and a good-ish boyfriend.”

His therapist nodded. “No one ever really knows when they’re ready. It’s fine to not know if you are, or change your mind part way through, or change your opinion afterwards. What I’d advise is that you talk this through with your partner, and also try to be gentler with yourself. You’re not a bad person or a bad boyfriend. For your age, you’re actually remarkably good at navigating relationships. You’re learning from your mistakes and actively attempting to better yourself. That’s more than a lot of adults ever do.”

“Yeah, well. Freddy’s into superheroes. I’m not aiming for adult, I’m aiming for one of those 70’s style superhero romances where things might get weird but it works out in end. Is that an immature way to phrase it?”

“It’s a way of framing it that allows you to better understand your own goals. Does it _matter_ if it’s immature, if it’s useful and helps you become a better person?”

“I guess not.” Billy grinned, in spite of how heavy the topic at hand was and how awkward therapy could sometimes be. “You’re awesome. You must be a kick-ass dad.”

“I’m trying, and I’m learning. And in the end, that’s all anyone can ask for in life.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Darla calling group hugs cuddle puddles may not be canon but it is to me.
> 
> Jesse trying not to be a jerk and trying to keep Salem alive is supposed to be just as ineffective and uncomfortable as that tactic would be IRL. You can't just make someone with an eating disorder eat and expect it to fix things, but he's a teenager without any psychological knowledge. I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at the time.
> 
> One day Billy will just let himself enjoy things. He's on his way there. It's going to happen, eventually.
> 
> Malloy loves pumpkin spice everything, plants, and watercolors. In this fic, everyone is a dork, even the therapist.


	31. Got It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jesse teaches. Billy reconciles. If good isn't a thing you are, but a thing you do, what does that make Billy Batson?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for a mention of a suicide attempt - and the method of the attempt and one mention of strangulation (it's brief, but it's there).

_Jesse pressed a kiss to the top of Billy’s head, snapping him out of his glaring at his math book._

_“You’ll get it,” the blond assured him, like it was simply bound to happen. “Here, let me see what you’re having problems with, Bill.”_

_“Literally everything,” he griped, shoving the worksheet towards his boyfriend with obvious disdain._

_School was hard. He was constantly moving from school to school and no two had the exact same curriculum, sometimes being wildly inconsistent even on the same subject. If he could have, Billy would have gladly failed everything and moved on with his life. There was a problem, though. His mom, when he found her, would be really disappointed to find out he was a moron. Billy was garbage at a lot of things, spent a lot of time looking stuff up online to stay afloat in school, and had Jesse tutoring him when he could, only for it to still not be enough. He didn’t want his mom to be burdened with a dumbass kid when they reunited._

_So here he was, struggling through fractions, lowkey wanting to disappear. School was a uniquely humiliating experience. He’d been able to keep up, more or less, when they were just adding or subtracting them. Now that he was in this latest school he’d been thrown headfirst into multiplying and dividing fractions without any preparation. Miserably, he leaned his head against Jesse’s shoulder. The older boy squeezed his hand, gently, giving him a loving smile. Jesse thought he could do it. Even when all the teachers gave up and the foster parents got tired of his questions, Jesse always believed in him._

_“Here, I think I know where you’re going wrong – let me show you, and I think it’ll click this time,” he said, grabbing a spare piece of paper and a pen. Billy wondered if Jesse ever got tired of him asking for help all the time. If he did, he didn’t show it. “Really, you’re closer to being right than you think.”_

_Billy tilted his head up and kissed Jesse behind the ear. The older boy’s cheeks colored – he had a few weirdly specific turn-ons, and Billy rarely initiated anything to start with. The combination actually left him flustered. That was a rare thing, with Jesse._

_“Thanks for putting up with me,” the younger boy said softly, and Jesse’s expression softened._

_“Likewise, Bill.”_

* * *

 

The sounds of the wind and his footsteps were the only disruption to the quiet of the hour.

Four AM was a good hour to be out alone. At this hour, nobody even bothered committing crimes; it was too close to five, when people would start waking up en masse, for criminals to be secure in their ability to get away. As Shazam, people might say something to him, but as Billy Batson, nobody said a word. The very, very few people he’d passed had given him looks varying from light concern to indifference and then kept on walking on. Nobody was going to stop him. He could go wherever he wanted.

He wasn’t sure where that was, exactly. Billy picked a direction and walked, trying to keep his dinner down and level out his breathing. He didn’t want to remember the good moments with Jesse, all those sweet moments where it had felt like them against the world. He didn’t want to think about the two times he’d started it when they had sex. He wanted it all out of his head. First Billy ran for blocks, until his lungs hurt, then he walked, and then he kept walking.

All the nervous energy in him mixed with the shame. He couldn’t let Freddy see him like this, all jittery and wound up and ready to fall apart. He really, really didn’t want Victor and Rosa to see what a mess he was when they had the whole Eugene situation to handle. Once he got it together he’d walk back. The thought was strange, new, and good. He wanted to go back. Billy had never had that before Victor and Rosa, before Freddy. He might’ve had it with Salem if he hadn’t immediately bailed four days after they slept together, convinced he was messing him up by staying. Somehow, he wasn’t messing anyone up by staying with the Vasquez family. They liked him. They enjoyed having him around. Nobody seemed significantly more depressed because he was hanging around them or worse off for having him as a foster brother. They wanted him.

His mom didn’t, and that still stung. If she had, he never would have met Jesse and he wouldn’t have ended up so… so… God, he didn’t know what the word for somebody like him was. Volatile, maybe? Beating the shit out of Freddy’s bullies and stealing his Superman bullets and deciding to monetize being a superhero were all really extreme decisions. More chill people probably wouldn’t have gone with any of those choices, especially not on a whim, but Billy totally did and he didn’t regret much of it. He had a bigger plan – finding his mom – for most of his life, and everything that happened that wasn’t finding her didn’t really matter, not the way a family did.

Maybe that was how Jesse had talked him into some truly stupid things.

_(“Shh,” Jesse murmured, pressing a cold washcloth to Billy’s throat. “Just try to focus on breathing. The bruising will go down in a day or two.”_

_“’m sorry,” he managed to croak, only for it to spur on a series of coughs. His back wanted to arch off the bed with the force of it, the taste of blood souring his mouth, but Jesse’s hands kept him stable against the mattress, and the moment passed._

_The older boy grabbed a cup he’d brought in, holding it up to Billy’s lips. “Don’t talk. Here, gargle this, it’ll help.”_

_He did as he was told, grateful for the way the burning subsided. After he spat it back into the cup, Jesse eased him down onto the mattress, taking one of Billy’s smaller hands in his afterwards. It was rare for him to be so quiet, so contemplative, especially when Billy had expected him to be mad at him. Instead, he gently stroked Billy’s hair, tucking a stray strand behind his ear and finger-combing the tangles out of the rest. The motions were soft, intimate, in a way that made it easier to breathe despite the pain of what he’d forced himself through. This wasn’t the first time he’d played the Choking Game, but it was the most he’d pushed himself through in one day, again and again, until Jesse had hauled him home against his will and over his objections._

_At this point, objecting would seem pretty stupid. He shut his eyes, exhausted, waiting for the inevitable anger that just simply never came. His boyfriend kept up his gentle, doting touches, gray eyes turned gold by the cream-and-gold light filtering through the lace curtains and bouncing off the pastel yellow walls. Everything was warm and serene, in stark contrast to the unrelenting summer sunlight Jesse had pulled him out of, which cast everything in harsh tones. Outside, the world seemed made of absolutes. He had to do things that hurt to find his mom. He had to find her. Failure was not an option. The world itself was an unyielding, unrelenting thing, a city where failures ended up homeless and winners ended up just getting by, and damnit, he wanted to be a winner. He wanted his mom._

_Tears welled up in his eyes, against his will. “Shit.” He turned his head away, embarrassed. Nine and a half was way too old to cry._

_“Shh, shh,” Jesse murmured soothingly, sitting on the bed and squeezing Billy’s shoulder. “It’s okay. You gotta let it out sometime. Might as well be now. Look, this… this was my bad. I should’ve kicked more money your way, made it easier for you to find your mom, made this whole thing less of a shitshow, but – but I’m gonna fix it, okay? I’m gonna teach you how to make better money_ without _getting hurt. Okay?”_

_Billy blinked at him, the world blurred by frustrated tears and the warm light of afternoon streaming through the windows of their room. “What do you mean?”_

_“I’m gonna teach you to shoplift, and where to pawn it after. Nobody is ever gonna choke you again, I promise, Bill. You in?”_

_He looked into Jesse’s gray eyes, cast gold in this moment, and nodded. “I’m in.”)_

Out of sheer habit, he glanced at a store display. Gas stations open twenty four hours were always good for swiping things from. They had cameras, but the cameras weren’t often watched, and if something was under five dollars in value, no criminal charges could be pressed. Combine that with the fact staff weren’t allowed to chase anyone past the door and it was a treasure trove for food theft on the go. When Billy was on nine hour bus rides to the next county over to look up the latest woman with the surname Batson he’d found, he didn’t have money for food. He didn’t need it. He needed to get from the bus depot to the nearest gas station and back before the cops could get called, if they were called at all.

The cameras in this store were obviously not active. The spherical shape was supposed to keep him from making that assessment, but the faint lack of shine from dust was a dead giveaway. Were they to somehow be active, there was at least two blind spots he could spot from the window alone. If he had a backpack on him he could get three sandwiches and a drink and be out in just under three minutes. In his hoodie alone he could probably swipe a sandwich and a candy bar. _This is what Jesse made me. And I let him._

He rested his head against the glass and sighed, feeling incredibly old for a guy not yet fifteen years old. “What is my life?” he muttered, more tired than angry anymore at this point.

“What indeed?” a voice asked behind him, and Billy, like a nerd, shrieked and spun around. His first impulse was to put up his fists to defend himself _(“For the love of God, keep your thumbs outside your fist’s grip when you punch,” Jesse said, exasperated and legitimately concerned. “You’re gonna break your fingers otherwise!”)_ and then his brain registered who was in front of him.

“Superman?” One day, this would not be startling and terrifying and incredibly cool. Today was not that day. “What’re you doing here?”

The older superhero smiled, an amused quirk of a grin that told Billy he was more amused than angry. “I could ask you the same thing, young man. Isn’t it past your bedtime?”

“Or I’m an early riser,” Billy shot back on automatic, glancing at his cellphone, which informed him it was four-thirty by this point. God, playing it cool in front of Superman was hard. “Um, am I in trouble?”

“That depends. Did you do anything wrong?” Superman asked, in a moment that was such a pitch perfect 50’s style superhero line that Billy wished Freddy were here to see it.

He snorted, bitterly, as he considered the question. “Not tonight. But I’ve been an asshole for literally years, and I’m sort of realizing that it’s not totally other people’s fault. Sorry, uh, you probably don’t care,” he added, aware he was rambling. “I just – you caught me in the middle of a moment. Sorry. You’ve probably got world-saving, fates-of-millions stuff to go do. I’m gonna head home. Night, dude.”

 _Smooth, Batson,_ he winced at himself, and was unsurprised when Superman put his hand on the boy’s shoulder to stop his exit. _Smooth like broken glass topped with gravel. I suck at this talking-to-fellow-heroes thing._

“What makes you think you weren’t a good person?” Superman asked, and his first urge was to ask what about him _was_ good, prior to meeting Freddy, but that wasn’t the answer he was looking for. The look on his serious face told Billy that this was like when a teacher who cared too much asked a serious question. He wasn’t going to be able to snark, joke or glare his way out of this. So he didn’t try.

“Six months ago, I’d have taken whatever I could carry from this store. I’d get on the bus with stolen money or money I got from selling something I stole, and I wouldn’t care who that hurt. You know,” Billy said, more to his reflection as he turned back to the gas station window, “People lose jobs because of people like me? Like, a store loses enough stuff and they have to make up costs, so they cut jobs, so people get fired. And like, I never thought about it before, but maybe those people couldn’t get another job, or maybe they did but I made them go through a few months of hell hoping to God they got one before they ran out of money and ended up on the streets. And,” he said, because he saw Superman start to open his mouth and didn’t want to stop just yet, “I didn’t only grab cheap stuff. One time my boyfriend and I robbed six thousand dollars worth of stuff from a single Apple Store in half an hour. I _definitely_ ruined at least one person’s life. I’m not just an asshole, I’m a chronic, selfish, completely self-centered one, and I _suck_.”

Superman let that statement hang in the air for the moment. Billy examined the employees inside the gas station who, because it was Philly and they were incredibly jaded, were more fused about restocking the shelves and mopping the floor than the superhero and errant kid watching them from the outside. Those people probably had families. They had kids, maybe, kids not that different from Darla or Eugene, or they had parents like Victor or Rosa, who they loved and wanted to support. They had bills. They needed to eat. The Billy he had been before wouldn’t have given a damn about any of that and hadn’t lost much sleep over the Apple Store incident, reassured by Jesse that the corporation got what it had coming. And maybe the corporation deserved the loss, sure, maybe the gas station chain or the Apple company deserved to get screwed, but these people didn’t. _Some superhero I turned out to be,_ he thought, giving his own reflection in the glass a glare. _Yeah, the Wizard wasn’t joking when he said he’d run out of options by the time he got to me._

“Why’d you do it?” Superman asked, voice surprisingly lacking in judgment. “Why did you steal that, at that store? What did you spend it on?”

“We spent it on finding his parents and a trip to Morgantown. It took a private investigator, twenty nine hours of travel and more money than you’d think, and all we found was some graves. Blew the rest out after we got back a few days later on his hospital bills after he crammed nearly six hundred Ibuprofen caplets down.” He massaged his temples, feeling a building headache. “That wasn’t even the last thing we – I, stole, you know. I’m pretty sure you should be throwing me in jail right now. Verbal testimony’s legal enough grounds, here at least.”

“You wanted to reunite your boyfriend with his family, and helped him by paying off the bills when he hit the lowest point someone can hit,” Superman said simply, making Billy tear his eyes from the glass to stare at him in disbelief. “You did bad things, but you know they’re bad now. You’re not going to do them again. And you did them out of love.”

He wanted to argue that. He really, really did. Malloy had told him once that sometimes, victims looked for someone to blame them so they would have permission to break down. Billy wanted that. He wanted someone to tell him he was wrong, he was bad, he was a jackass, because he _was_ and he deserved to be told it to his face. Everyone felt sorry for him and he didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve Superman, a literal superhero, telling him it was okay when it really, really wasn’t. Billy had hurt people. He had hurt Jesse, that night in the park, seen something inside him break that never got put back together. His birth had ruined his mom’s life entirely. Billy Hassan Batson had been destroying lives since he first came into being.

And the real kicker, the thing that cut like a knife, that kept him up at night, was that he’d done all the stupid, destructive things he’d done since then for people who didn’t love him back and never wanted him.

He shook his head, shame-faced, and turned away when Superman tried to put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “That doesn’t make it okay. I need – I want to do something to fix it.”

The older hero’s gaze was sympathetic, empathetic, and sad. “That’s not always possible, son.”

There was nothing to say to that, but he found something to say anyway. _I’m not gonna accept that. I’m not going to be like Jesse and say ‘it’s too late to apologize’ or ‘things are too fucked to unfuck it’ or any of that. I’m not like him. I’m **not**._

“Impossible’s my thing, Supes. I’ll figure it out. I got this.”

In spite of the grandeur of that statement, Superman smiled again at him, approvingly.

“Yeah. I think you do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Morgantown here refers to Morgantown, West Virginia. It is, depending on the bus route, possible to get there in twenty four to twenty eight hours by bus from Philly. Also, I lived there, and I can attest to it having a small Romanian population. Jesse Dobrescu is Romanian-American. Hence, Morgantown.
> 
> I know the average cost of a suicide attempt and consequent treatment varies but assuming Jesse lied through his teeth and got released relatively quickly, five thousand-ish is possibly enough to cover it. It's definitely enough to cover it if we assume Billy's/Jesse's foster parents paid the rest with their insurance. I imagine they didn't question where the money came from because questioning it and getting Billy hit with shoplifting charges would render them unable to continue having foster kids when combined with Jesse's attempt having happened under their watch.
> 
> There's a shoplifting community on tumblr I shamelessly took my limited shoplifting knowledge from. If it's wrong: I didn't want to do further research. It felt wrong.


	32. Thaiv

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy saves someone who would not do the same for him, makes an ally, and finds a soft place to fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW/CW for: attempted murder, referenced successful murder, blood, description of injuries, and domestic abuse.
> 
> Billy's a superhero so it turns out okay, but it's still a lot, so proceed with caution. Please practice safe reading.

Marilyn drifted somewhere inbetween awake and unconscious, and her only thought was, _so this is what C.C. felt like._

She’d kept her promise to her ex-husband and told Billy he was a deadbeat, because that was a lot less damaging to a kid than the reality of having a dad who’d committed murder. Self-defense, she argued, at the time and now, in her head. Self-defense and he was only seventeen, he was a kid, really, it wasn’t entirely his fault, but none of that mattered to C.C. _“If you love me, you’ll lie for me,”_ he’d said, plain and simple. _“Keep him safe, Marzy. Even if that means keeping him safe from **me**.”_ And God help her, she’d looked into his honey-brown eyes, so vulnerable and young, and told him yes.

At least Billy was safe now. He was far, far away from her and all of her fuck-ups. She coughed, which turned into convulsions, the taste of blood filling her mouth, her hands curling into fists as fiery pain pulsed through her abdomen. Karsten had never hit her that hard before. _My fault. I should have told him I was going to be late, I shouldn’t have taken that car ride home, I know he hates seeing me near other men, it’s my fault…_ Her left hand curled around the trinket Billy had given her. Thank God he wasn’t here to see this. How many times had she seen her mother like this after her father got drunk, or lost his cool, or had a bad day at work, or had one of those blackout episodes where he couldn’t remember anything afterwards? Marilyn had lost count. She hadn’t been able to spare Billy all of the damage that came from being related to someone as awful as her, but at least he was safe and away from all this violence.

Marilyn tried to force herself to sit up. Her arms gave out when she propped herself up on her elbows. Her head beat like a drum, pulse slamming through her temples, and she wasn’t sure if she had laid back down or briefly passed out. Did it matter? It was cooler down here on the floor anyway. She felt scorching hot despite still being in her relatively light pajamas. Maybe she’d just stay down here for a few minutes.

Karsten had started off so different from her other boyfriends. He wrote novels he was trying to get published, he came from one of those West Virginia families that didn’t have water or electricity but had worked his way up to living in a city and having those things for himself, he was so shy about approaching women, and damn it all, she really thought he was the one. ( _No,_ some small part of her said, _C.C. was the one. He was the one and you threw him away because you thought it would get you back in with your parents. He loved you and you ruined his life just like you ruin everyone’s life you stupid bitch-_ ) Karsten had been so romantic at first. Holding her hand, smiling, giving her flowers, and Marilyn wasn’t sure what he saw in her. She didn’t see anything good or lovable in herself. He did.

Or rather, he _had_.

She was a deeply flawed person. Eventually, people figured that out and they got tired of putting up with her. The only exceptions were C.C., who inexplicably adored her to this day, and Billy, who inexplicably thought she was worth finding. _I guess being a terrible judge of character is genetic._ Their kid had a double dose of that particular trait, maybe – or maybe the reason people grew to hate her was simply that she was garbage. She’d never been good, or maybe she was only as good as whoever she was attached to, or maybe it didn’t matter in the end at all. Karsten snapped, she crumpled, and now she could feel her body shutting down and maybe – no, probably, honestly – she deserved it.

Her breathing was labored, loud. Blood was trickling out of her mouth onto the floor, which made no sense considering he hadn’t hit her face. Whenever she opened her eyes the room seemed to tilt dangerously out from underneath her, as if she was dizzy and falling while lying perfectly still. Her hands shook. How long had she been laying here? Would her coworkers notice? Would one of her neighbors call the cops or see that the door was open or…? She shut her eyes, tears welling up. No, no they wouldn’t. Nobody cared about her, including herself, and nobody would miss her.

“-can you hear me?” There was a swoosh of fabric, a click of boots – boots? – on the linoleum floor, and then someone was kneeling by her, close enough she could hear his breathing. “Marilyn, can you hear me? I need you to say something.”

_(“Say something,” C.C. said, shakily, pulling her into his arms. “You’re okay, you’re okay. He can’t hurt you anymore, we’ll be okay, just say something-”_

_“-where’s my dad?” she managed to slur out, squinting at her bloodstained husband, the red vivid and all-consuming to her hazy vision. He didn’t answer, almond-shaped eyes not meeting hers, tears staining his cheeks. His hands were shaking. “C.C.?”)_

“C.C.?” she murmured, the sunlight from the window reflecting brightly on the red clothing of the man in front of her. “Cev, Cevahir, I’m so hot, I need some water…”

The red-clad man in front of her had C.C.’s face, the same soft eyes and broad shoulders, and she swore it felt the same when he picked her up as it did when C.C. did. Her body spasmed against the man’s arms, full body twitches that sent pain searing through her senses. Every inch of her abdomen and torso seemed to be on fire, aching sharply when she was moved, and she couldn’t manage to get a grip on his shirt for leverage. She tried to take a deep breath only to end up in a coughing fit so intense she flecked her rescuer’s chest with blood, curling up against him helplessly. Was she dying? Was she hallucinating? She couldn’t put it together enough to tell; all her thoughts disconnected and scattered like scraps of paper in the wind, and she couldn’t keep her eyes open.

“You’ll be okay,” a strong, half-familiar voice told her. Somehow they seemed to be in the air, and the wind felt blessedly cool against her burning skin. “He’s not gonna hurt you anymore, okay?”

She nuzzled into his chest, unsure of everything but too tired to care. “Okay, C.C. I love you.”

 

* * *

 

 

Officer Xiong was about to call it a day when her phone rang.

Her personal phone was on her, when she was on duty, but very few people had the number to it. Fewer people still would call her while she was at work unless the situation was dire. Despite the fact she was on hour seventeen of what had started out as a twelve hour shift – being short on officers meant her shifts inevitably snowballed into her shift and half of someone else’s – and how much she really needed coffee and a shower, in that order, she dutifully pulled her phone out and answered.

The number was unknown, so she went with both her job title and her name. “This is Officer Thaiv-Hli Xiong, Philadelphia PD.”

“I – hi, um, you don’t know me, I’m the superhero? Philly’s superhero, I mean,” the voice on the other end said in a rush of frantic words, barely giving her time to register what he was saying. “I know that makes the legality of me asking you to look into something kinda dubious but I found this woman, she was – her boyfriend beat the shit out of her-”

“Slow down,” she said firmly, in a tone of voice that shut all arguments down. Giving the coffee shop one last wistful look, she put the car back in drive and started off. In the background on his end of the call, she could hear the intercom of a hospital. “Which hospital is she at and what’s her name?”

He rattled off an address and a name, which she instantly committed to memory. How old was he? Officer Xiong was willing to bet he hadn’t hit thirty yet. That shaken tone told her that he hadn’t encountered something like this before, and was trying to keep it together; his voice wavered, his words overlapped, and yet he was speaking clearly enough it was obvious he was making an effort. _I wonder if Batman went through an adjustment period,_ she mused, forcing any concerns she had to the side. _I have to get this right. I want the superheroes here to trust the police. Holy crap, I never thought I’d be the one doing this. What is my life? How did he get this number – focus. Questions later, action now._

“How did you find her?” Xiong asked, to help keep him talking and direct his thoughts. After a traumatic event, people often needed guidance to focus. She cruised along towards the hospital at exactly the speed limit, not legally able to throw on her lights unless the emergency was classified as urgent.

She heard him take a calming breath. “I was flying by in the area. I’ve been trying to do that, to stop more crime, and I saw her through the window.”

“How do you know her boyfriend is abusive? I need as many details as possible to make sure my warrant is bulletproof when I investigate.”

“I… I talked to her once, out of disguise, I mean. Her boyfriend was practically screaming at her. She doesn’t have anybody and that makes her a good target, I guess. Can – can you lock him up, for that? Is that a thing?”

“Enough of a thing to raid his apartment, with some paperwork and probably cause discussion,” she answered honestly. “I’m going to talk to the doctor and file a report. It’s good you didn’t tamper with anything at the scene; we have a good case, Red. We’ll get him.”

There was a pause, and an exhale of relief. She heard him mutter ‘thank God’, or something along those lines. “The, uh, the kid I got your number from, he said you were big on doing things for others. I know I’m new to superhero-ing and you don’t have any reason to trust me, and I know a lot of superhero stuff isn’t totally legal, so… thanks, for helping.”

That was true, and a legal area where the law had yet to catch up to the times. On the one hand, superheroes obtained evidence in illegal ways, often rendering it inadmissible in a court of law and allowing criminals to go free. On the other hand, superheroes often intervened before situations escalated to a point where lives were lost, something that many people in law enforcement, herself included, appreciated deeply. Anything that meant less body bags was good by Xiong, personally. And despite the legal gray area in which many heroes operated, this was actually fairly clear cut: Shazam, operating as a private citizen, had witnessed the probable aftermath of a crime and offered transport of an injured person to a hospital, whereupon he contacted law enforcement. There were no broken laws involved in this process. She could look into the abuser with justified probable cause and press charges based on evidence – including the thankfully still alive victim.

“Thanks for saving her. Usually, I get called in after it’s too late for things like this. You’re a good guy, Red.” A weirdo, too, since he dressed up in a cape and spandex and ran around town, but a good person nonetheless. “Call me back if you need something else, find something else or want a case update. I promise, I’m not going to try to track your calls or anything of that ilk so long as you do one thing for me.”

“Yeah?” He sounded skeptical now, and bitterly disappointed, as if he’d known this was coming. Unseen by him, she grinned, reminded of all the terms and conditions people had applied to their promises to help her when she was a runaway and then a foster kid.

She knew what it was to be used. That’s why she didn’t use people in turn. “Don’t be afraid to reach out if you need more help with a case. There’s nothing wrong with bringing in back up. After what happened this winter, you should know that.”

“…okay. That’s fair. You too, though. Call me, if you need me. I don’t want to be too late the next time something happens. I nearly was, and that makes me sick.”

“I know that feeling,” she said, more to herself than anything else. “Good God, do I know that feeling.”

“Does it ever get any easier?” he asked, sounding like an overwhelmed rookie.

“No. But it’s worth it.”

 

* * *

 

 

Freddy woke up to Billy climbing through their window, looking absolutely exhausted.

“Billy? What’re you doing up? It’s a school day, dude,” he pointed out, sleepily, only for Billy to stay silent, leaning against the wall tiredly. “…is that blood on your face?”

Billy blinked, wiping at his face with his hand and staring at the resulting red flecks smeared across his palm. Slowly, he sat down in the rolly chair by their desk, like someone who was moving in a trance. He opened his mouth to speak, only for nothing to come out. It took a couple of tries before he managed to do anything more than exhale, by which point Freddy’s brain had processed that something was very wrong and he’d thrown off his blankets to try to get out of bed, gritting his teeth as his leg cramped dangerously. Billy gestured for him to stay down.

“Don’t – don’t get hurt, for me. I’ll be fine. It’s fine. I just… I had to drop my mom off, at the hospital.”

Freddy forced himself to sit up and Billy, huffing in obvious frustration, walked over and physically pushed him back onto the bed to keep him from straining himself. “Holy _shit_ , Billy, what – how – I feel like I missed something?”

Billy sat down on the edge of Freddy’s bed, shrugging. “Not really? I told you, the guy she was with when I found her, he sounded abusive. I wanted to think maybe it was just yelling but I got worried and… I dunno, I talked to Superman – I don’t know what _he’s_ doing here, but whatever – and I guess I thought maybe I should check in on her. She ditched me, but… if I ditch her, then I’m doing the same thing, right? Heroes aren’t supposed to give up on people or let them get hurt just because they hurt you, you know?”

The multiple pauses in Billy’s sentences and the softness of his voice were a sharp contrast with how confident he could often be. All the self-assured badassery that he had as Shazam was gone, replaced with something honest and painfully vulnerable, a fragility that made Freddy reach for his hand sympathetically. There would never be a day that Marilyn wasn’t a weak spot for him. That was, in Freddy’s opinion, way more than that woman deserved, but admittedly he was biased towards Billy and against anyone who hurt him. Now, though, with her blood still smeared on Billy’s face, Freddy found it hard to muster up much hatred for her. Nobody deserved _that_. He felt a chill go down his spine at the realization that if Billy hadn’t happened along, she might not have had anybody there to help her. If he hadn’t decided that being a superhero meant going out on patrol like in comics, would she have made it?

“Is she going to be okay?” Freddy asked, carefully, not sure if asking would be jinxing it.

The other boy nodded, solemnly. His grip on Freddy’s fingers tightened, and his eyes were sad. “She’s stable. They had to do surgery to fix the internal bleeding first, though, plus she – she kept getting me, um, superhero me, I mean, mixed up with my dad. She said… she said ‘I love you’. To him, not me, but for a second it was like – I thought-”

Freddy shifted up on his good side to grab Billy by the shoulder and tug him down, using his weight as leverage, pulling him into a tight hug. For a moment, Billy didn’t move, just laid there with his face buried in his boyfriend’s chest. He took deep, calming breaths like Malloy had taught him to. Then he finally let himself cry – not full sobs, not wails of grief, just small, quiet gasps punctuated by a few brief tears. Freddy’s medical knowledge came from the internet and comic books, but he knew internal bleeding was something that led to death more often than not. He knew how close Billy had come to losing his mom permanently, and he was willing to bet the implications weren’t lost on Billy, either. He couldn’t relate to his boyfriend in terms of what she said or how she’d said it; Freddy’s mom was declared unfit as a parent by the state, but she had loved him, deeply, and said as much to him more than once.

But he figured he didn’t need to understand things perfectly to be able to comfort him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Officer Xiong was featured in a flashback in Chapter 24. Part of her first name, Thaiv, is the chapter title. It means 'to shield' or 'to protect' in Hmong.
> 
> 'Marzy', C.C.'s nickname for Marilyn, stems from 'Mars' being the nickname for girls named Meral in Turkish. Meral isn't too far off from Maril(yn). I headcanon Billy's dad as Turkish-Iranian by heritage.
> 
> My fanfic Paved With Good Intentions is canon with this fic in terms of Billy's dad in general.
> 
> I did this at 11 at night after finishing my Anthropology paper. This is what I did instead of sleeping.


	33. Loved & Loved In Return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy tries to stay afloat in the aftershocks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: References to child abandonment (hi Marilyn), and underage sexuality (hi Jesse).

She didn’t love him.

She didn’t. He was too burned out by this to tell himself that she did, to bring himself to believe that she ever had. Maybe she’d cared, the way anybody would care about a random kid. That wasn’t the same as actually, really loving him. Marilyn had never been there for him the way Rosa already had, for instance. Rosa was the one who helped him when he was sick, who got him a therapist, who was kind enough that she got past his defenses and got him to admit that Jesse had been hurting him. He would never be able to tell Marilyn about his old foster homes or his old boyfriend, or his new boyfriend and how hard he was trying in school and how he was getting better about dealing with his panic attacks. Marilyn wasn’t there to share in his ups and downs.

Rosa was. Rosa was the one who drove him to therapy, who took his hand and squeezed it whenever he was visibly zoning out, who gently told him to go hang out with his siblings. She introduced him to the concept of a mom, a real mom who loved him and wanted what was best for him. When Rosa told him she loved him she meant it. He didn’t doubt that she meant it for a second. When Marilyn said it, he knew it wasn’t really directed at him.

It hurt to hear her say it anyway.

So much of his life had been spent seeking her out, waiting for the day that they could be a family again. He was really little when she left him but he _remembered_. He remembered her bundling him up in winter clothes before he went outside in the winter, making oatmeal with granola and a little bit of peanut butter, holding him as she watched TV. Billy had a few memories of her that over the years he’d held onto tightly because without that, without her, he had almost nothing. He needed hope. He needed to believe that one day he’d have a normal life with a mom and a steady neighborhood to live in and family holidays and-

_(“My parents used to take me to church,” Jesse mused, sitting on the windowsill looking out at the snowy streets. “Not most of the time, but for Christmas, we’d go – it was kind of okay, actually. Orthodox churches are ridiculously fancy. Then we’d go over to my grandparents’ house for a big family dinner.”_

_Elio, from his place sitting on the floor double-checking Billy’s homework, smiled. “My family always went out to get Chinese on Christmas. I don’t know why, but it was awesome. One time I ate so much almond chicken I wasn’t hungry for two days.”_

_“…we had a big breakfast, when my dad was still with us,” Billy said, slowly, pulling the ancient memory from the depths of his mind. He was three the last time he had both parents present for a Christmas. “Big bagels, cheese, olives, this really spicy sausage, these dumpling-thingies, rice. I don’t think a lot of those were breakfast foods, my dad just liked cooking and my mom liked getting to stay home from work.”_

_It was so long ago, such a faint memory and growing fainter. Would he be able to remember it at all in a few years? The thought of losing it made his throat close up._

_But it’d be okay. He’d be with his mom soon. They’d make new memories.)_

He groaned, pushing himself up off the bed. At some point Freddy had gotten up and gotten ready for school, apparently covering for Billy, since it was nine in the morning and Rosa hadn’t woken him up. He would have been grateful if it hadn’t left him alone with his thoughts. Billy wasn’t sure what he was feeling. A good superhero helped people who wouldn’t have helped them if the situation was reversed, a good hero saved their villains, but he’d never wanted his mom to fall into those categories. She may not have loved him, but he had loved her. He still loved her, deep down.

At least he knew now that she’d loved his dad. That much, he believed. She missed him. When she thought Billy was him, she’d curled up and relaxed instantly in his arms despite the severity of her injuries. The very idea of C.C. made her feel better. Maybe once upon a time she had wanted Billy, because she had wanted a family with C.C. and a life with him. That hadn’t lasted, obviously, but it felt good to imagine it that way anyhow, to picture them as at least briefly happy before everything went wrong and C.C. ended up in jail while his ex-wife bounced from one abusive relationship to another.

 _I wonder if that’ll happen to me._ The thought made him feel cold, and he shifted to curl up in the bed. _What if I just go from one guy to another? How much like her am I?_ Elio, Wyatt, Salem, Jesse, Freddy – that was five guys in almost as many years. That wasn’t normal. Billy knew it wasn’t normal to be so focused on money, finding his mom and clinging to guys. He’d gone on to let most of them slip away without much attachment. He had walked away from Salem just like his mom walked away from him. Jesse had left him just like his mom left him. Was he going to end up ruining things with Freddy, too? Was he going to have to pick up and leave again?

He shut his eyes, willing himself to sleep. It didn’t work. He tried what Aliciana had taught him a dozen foster homes ago, picturing a daydream scenario that didn’t have anything to do with him to get his mind off of things. He tried Malloy’s strategies to direct his thoughts onto something healthier or at least less toxic. Laying in bed, Billy tried to will his body to relax enough that he could fall asleep and have a few moments where all this wasn’t eating him alive.

Around eleven, he had to concede to himself that it wasn’t working. Forcing himself out of bed, he grabbed his phone and collapsed back into bed. The first person he texted was Malloy, to see if he could get an appointment sometime today.

The second person he texted was Freddy, to say thank you. He wouldn’t have been able to function in school today, but he would’ve tried anyway if Freddy hadn’t given him a break.

He loved him. He was loved back in return.

That much, he believed.

 

* * *

 

 

_(Jesse was only slightly less out of breath than Billy was as they slammed to a halt in the subway car, collapsing onto each other as the doors closed._

_Thankfully, everything they’d shoplifted was metal and thus unbreakable. Their profits were intact, so they took one look around the empty subway compartment and then burst into laughter. Laughing only made them dizzier, pulses still racing and heartbeats pounding, aware of how close to the edge they’d come. Apple Stores were devoid of cameras in most of Philly, so as long as they got out of the area without security clocking them, they were fine, but they hadn’t bargained on a cop being nearby. Jesse’s hand was still locked around Billy’s wrist from where he’d tugged him as they bolted for it. The haul was too important to risk walking. The money from reselling this would finance all their ventures for months, and that high, that triumph, made Billy nuzzle into Jesse affectionately, pressing his smiling face into the crook of his neck and squeezing his hand tightly._

_“Oh my God, we made it,” Billy gasped out inbetween breaths, setting Jesse to laughing again as the younger boy slipped his backpack off his shoulders and onto the floor. “Holy fuck, we’re not dead!”_

_He snorted, gathering Billy up closer in his arms and holding on tight. “Yeah, uh, Bill? We’re white, we weren’t going to get_ shot _.”_

 _“I can_ hear _your heartbeat, Jay. You were scared.” Inexplicably, he ended up cuddling into him, touches contradicting his snarky tone, trying to close in the last inch between them, the two of them half-splayed out across two seats. He couldn’t think straight and he didn’t want to. “I can’t believe you did that for me.”_

_“’Course I did, Bill. You know I love you.”_

_Billy stared into his eyes, struck by a strange sense of the enormity of the statement. It wasn’t as if Jesse hadn’t said it before, but with well over a thousand dollars of electronics between them, it somehow seemed more true than it normally did. “Jess…”_

_Whatever else he was going to say was swallowed up by Jesse abruptly kissing him. Any other time, the fact that they were in public would have been a turn-off to both of them, but the rush of the run and the victory they’d scored was overwhelming. Billy kissed him back and hung onto him by the collar of his button up shirt, barely aware of anything else in the world. He was hard. Jesse was arguably harder, slipping a hand down under the waistband of his pants to grab at his ass, and that was what made Billy pause, pulling back to look around because being caught doing this would be so, so much worse than being caught stealing if it got back to their foster parents. He’d never seen the older boy look so flushed and needy underneath him like this, though, and any logical thoughts about how much of a bad idea this was couldn’t be heard over their ragged breathing and drumming heartbeats._

_By the time they hit the streets again Billy had more hickeys to hide than swiped electronics, and he wasn’t even remotely mad about it._

_He loved him, and he was loved in return.)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've got a lot of homework this week so y'all are getting this shorter chapter to ensure you get at least some content this week.


	34. Backslide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy backslides, tries to wrestle with partial guilt, and seeks out advice, in that order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for mentions of underage sex, brief mention of eating disorders, and some very not-healthy mindsets.

He’d thought this would bring him closure.

Knowing his mom was safe meant he could really, truly stop thinking about her. That was supposed to be it, basically: save her and walk away. Fix this and then let it be. And to his credit, he didn’t go stalking her for updates. Xiong updated him when the case merited it. He read the updates, trusted that she had the situation under control, and then he respected his mom’s wishes and left her alone. She didn’t want him in her life from the very beginning and he’d ruined that by coming crashing into her life again already. Hell, maybe the reason her boyfriend snapped on her was Billy showing up. He didn’t think it was an unreasonable thing to guess, given the guy was furious with her for just stepping outside to talk to literally anyone at all.

Billy didn’t go where he wasn’t wanted. He kept away from the hospital in Shazam form as well as civilian form, he forced himself not to freak out at the fact that he’d nearly been too late, and he rolled with it when he made up a lie that was almost good enough to fool Malloy. He put together a bullshit story about giving Shazam the number and being worried about his mom and it was obvious Malloy didn’t fully buy it, but he’d leave it be until the anxiety that needed to be addressed had passed. Somehow, him trying to help Billy when Billy was lying hurt. It hurt to know someone cared enough to look past his bullshit to help him when they knew full well he wasn’t being sincere or genuine in return. He hated himself. He hated what he was doing.

He’d failed his mom by not reporting her boyfriend sooner. He’d failed Malloy by betraying his trust. Superman had told him he had confidence he could fix things and he hadn’t, really, he’d only managed to make them very slightly better, not fixed, not _good_. Everything was still pretty terrible on the whole.

Worse, he wasn’t happy when he knew he should be.

Every day, he got to hang out with his boyfriend. They talked about comics and Freddy caught him up on all the cartoons he’d missed out on. They debated stupid theoretical about which superhero would win in a fight. Freddy carefully avoided the topics that made Billy feel like throwing up or clawing at his eyes in a way no one else ever took the time to. Billy got to cuddle up to him without the expectation that he’d have to get sexual with him, like with Jesse, and without the fear that being too sexual might scare him off, like with Salem. He was one of the luckiest guys on the planet, he knew, to have found someone who put up with him this regularly, especially after what a dick he’d been when he first got his superpowers.

He had great foster parents. Rosa actually asked about school, about his day, and really wanted to know the answers. Victor had a corny sense of humor sometimes that was really endearing and dad-ish. They took him to therapy without ever implying he was crazy for being so clearly, obviously not okay so much of the time. If he needed to, he knew they would let him vent or go on a walk or whatever he needed to be okay. They were amazing. He shouldn’t have still had problems with people that great in his life, to say nothing of his foster siblings. Darla was the first one to decide she was family to him, way back before he’d even met her. Mary was smart, capable of helping him study without making him feel dumb, and living proof that people could go through terrible things and live happy, healthy lives. Eugene was the only reason Billy was remotely okay with technology. His enthusiasm was absolutely endearing and Billy would kill for him, he was such a good brother. Pedro tried not to act concerned but always had a stash of candy and a stash of music on hand in case Billy needed something to cope with.

Billy Batson didn’t have real reasons to be unhappy. His grades were improving, he knew how to use his superpowers better than ever, he had a good boyfriend, a good family, and maybe a good future if he ever figured out what he wanted to do with his life. His nightmares had gone down in frequency, despite the recurring theme in them now of blond vampires and neck bites. He was on semi-friendly terms with people at school, which never happened with him normally due to how often he was moving around. He’d managed to get a therapist who inexplicably tolerated his rambling bullshit with pristine patience. He knew Superman.

Why wasn’t he happy? What was wrong with him? Why was he okay, most of the time, only to feel completely detached and unreal during some moments? He could feel it when his sense of reality warped, when he felt like he wasn’t here and this wasn’t happening, and it was crazy because nothing was actually wrong.

_Am I broken? Did Jesse break me? Why am I like this? Was I already broken when he – I mean, I did this when he touched me, sometimes. I should ask Malloy._

_Holy shit, I can **not** ask Malloy. _His stomach churned unpleasantly at the thought. This, this was what Billy hated – moments of internal crisis and panic when he wasn’t doing anything. He was sitting in school, reading the incredibly dull book they’d been assigned in English class, and then everything hit him like a freight train. That didn’t make sense to him, either. Why would his mind choose now, of all times, to suddenly go off? He swallowed, mouth feeling dry, the undercurrent of panic in his body making him bounce his leg under his desk to try to let off energy. Keeping it together was an art form, and Billy was shit at art.

He wrapped his arms around his stomach protectively, as if warding off the phantom touch of Jesse from years past. If he told Malloy about the times he spaced out from life, the natural next question would be when that started. And then he’d have to explain that a lot of the time, he spaced out in the middle of making out when it came to Jesse, and that was why he’d let him start grinding against him, or putting his hand up Billy’s shirt, or a dozen other things he should have stopped but didn’t. He should have, could have, maybe, but he wasn’t there, his body was there and his mind was a million miles away, yet somehow still not far enough away to keep him safe.

That was bad enough without taking into the account that he’d started it. Twice.

Two times in his life, he could honestly say he’d been the one to get into it first. The second time they robbed an Apple Store _(“We got so much last time, we_ have _to try again,” Jesse had argued, and Billy couldn’t really see a flaw in the plan)_ and one time when he’d had a panic attack and somehow ended up making out with him hard just to take the edge off. _(Jesse was visibly startled as Billy yanked him in, smashed his mouth against him, still breathing hard, face still tear-stained. “Bill, we need to talk-” His words got devoured by Billy’s mouth and his desperate need to feel someone next to him, against him, someone real, he wasn’t alone he wasn’t four years old and lost and alone with nobody coming for him he was okay-_ )

He didn’t try to tell the teacher what was wrong or make it to the bathroom, he simply got up and bolted for the trash can, feeling the oddly familiar comfort of being sick blocking out his ability to keep panicking.

If he was a little teary-eyed by the time he stopped throwing up, that was fine. Nobody noticed and nobody cared, himself included.

 

* * *

 

 

Billy had skipped school before, Salem knew, but it was a wild thing to have him show up at the dorms, as that was effectively skipping school to go to another school.

He let Billy in, of course, because experience had taught him things had to be pretty bad for Billy to actually seek out help. Billy, for his part, sank directly into Salem’s computer chair, looking drop-dead tired. His eyes were red and puffy from crying, he was pale, and his hands were balled into fists in his pockets. Salem was no stranger to hiding under layers of clothing – that was basically his default state of being – and he could tell that was what Billy was doing, running around in winter clothes in the middle of spring. He was trying to put distance between himself and the world around him. Salem winced internally at the sight.

Billy looked around the dorm room rather than at Salem, taking in the various pieces of fabric on the walls, the dark blue curtains, the multiple rugs that Salem used to break up the white-and-gray color palette of the room. It resembled his room back when they lived in the same house. Back then, Billy had crashed on the sofa, content to be a safe distance away from Jesse where he couldn’t get talked into another late night bad idea. He had loved Jesse, but he had needed his space, which he got by invading Salem’s space. Salem, for his part, had always been fine with that. So long as their foster parents didn’t say anything, it wasn’t a big deal. In a foster home where everyone was as connected as the Vasquez family was, though, finding space was difficult, and getting some peace and quiet was difficult.

Crossing the city to get to Salem was maybe not the most logical idea on paper, but Billy didn’t look like he was thinking logically. He wanted something familiar with someone who wouldn’t pry. Salem was a logical choice on that front. And if he reached down and hugged Billy a bit too long, or Billy hugged back a little too hard, nobody was there to see and no one had to know. Salem had known once they started texting that once he gave Billy his new address, this was eventually going to happen. Billy had been so tough on his own for so long that eventually, as much as he didn’t want to, he was going to need to lean on someone else for once. Ideally, that should have been Freddy, but nothing in Billy’s life had ever been ideal. He made a random choice and here he was, and that was who he was. Salem loved that about him under most circumstances.

Billy would never cheat on Freddy with him, Salem knew that. That wasn’t what this was. Sometimes people needed someone they knew wouldn’t talk to the rest of their friend group. For all Salem’s faults, he could keep a secret, and that was really what this was about. He ruffled Billy’s hair, then squeezed his shoulder, and didn’t ask what was wrong or if he wanted to talk about it. This wasn’t the right time for that.

“You want some tea?” he asked, to which Billy nodded. He put it together quietly, not saying anything as Billy slumped down in the chair, almost looking like he was going to try to sleep there. Once he’d handed Billy his drink, he backed off to sit on the bed, far enough away that Billy wouldn’t feel like Salem was crowding him.

“…Sae?” For once, Billy sounded as young as he was, rather than snarky and overly cynical. He sounded helpless, and in an instant Salem knew he’d do anything he asked of him. “You’d tell me the truth, if I asked, right? About anything?”

He nodded, keeping his eyes on Billy, trying to figure out what he meant. “Yeah, of course. Always.”

“Did… did you like it, when we…?” He didn’t have to finish the sentence. Nothing else got Billy to look as ashamed of himself as sex did.

“Yeah.” Salem’s cheeks went red at the memory and he automatically glanced at the door, as if someone might somehow overhear. “I did. I know my, um, I guess my breakdown afterwards didn’t exactly give you that impression, but I had a lot to work through that had nothing to do with you and a lot to do with my faith.”

Billy bit his lip hard, thinking. “Is it okay, that I started it? Even if you didn’t really want it?”

Salem gave him a flat look. “What part about me begging you to keep going said ‘I don’t want it’ to you?”

“Uh, the part where you never wanted me to hit on you in the first place?”

“No, I _said_ I didn’t want you to hit on me because it was easier to pretend I was straight if I didn’t have to deal with how into it I was. That’s a different thing than not wanting you to hit on me because I wasn’t into it. And if you’ll recall, I was the one who said you could crash in my room, I was the one who got Jesse away from you, and I was the one who suggested we could share a bed if you had nightmares.” He frowned, seeing Billy’s expression darken. “Billy, why can’t you just forgive yourself and move on? We were a thing, you helped me not hate myself, and now here we are. We’re both better off for what happened.”

The younger boy drew his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around himself. He was small and hopelessly lost. Salem wished that things were the way they used to be so he could hold him, but that wasn’t really appropriate anymore, given that they weren’t dating. Even if Billy wouldn’t take it that way, the implications might still be more uncomfortable than comforting. What was he supposed to do to fix this? He couldn’t understand Billy’s logic at all. They both started some of it. That was how relationships worked: some starting things on purpose, some fumbling around aimlessly, some happy mistakes and some missteps. It wasn’t like Billy walked up to guys and hauled them into a relationship kicking and screaming.

“You kissed me first, Billy, but I was the one who held your hand first. Let’s not try to play the blame game. Everyone comes out of that looking guilty and nothing gets any better for it.”

“…I kissed Jesse first.” It was just above a whisper.

Salem stood up, stepping closer. He wished he could somehow protect him from whatever thoughts were going through his head. “That’s not important. It doesn’t mean what he did was okay. Someone kissing you isn’t a greenlight to talk them into sleeping with you.”

Billy buried his face in his knees, hiding, and tensed slightly when Salem put a gentle, comforting hand on his back. He murmured something Salem didn’t catch, leaning away from the touch. “Sae, I, this one time, two times, actually, I… I was the one who… I started it, with, with Jesse…”

It took him a moment to put the dots together. Oh. _Oh_. That was complicating. Not to Salem – he was pretty sure that since Jesse had years to introduce Billy to the concept of sex and normalize what they did, Billy’s actions weren’t really unbiased or uninfluenced. As far as he was concerned, this didn’t change anything. There was a predator in this and he wasn’t in this room. Looking at Billy’s obvious self-loathing and his raw exhaustion, though, he could tell that this wasn’t an argument he was going to win. This was something they needed more people involved in, a therapist or an expert in abuse or something, and Salem wasn’t trained for this. The nuances of normal relationships were still lost on him, let alone whatever the thing Billy and Jesse had was. He wanted to help. He didn’t quite know how.

All he could do was kneel by the chair Billy was in, trying to get him to meet his eyes, and place a hand on top of his. “Doesn’t matter. Who started it isn’t important, B.B. You know me. You know I’d tell you if I thought any of this was your fault.”

Billy swallowed, staring at him with eyes shiny with unshed tears. _This is what Jesse did to him. And it doesn’t matter what Billy did, he didn’t deserve this._ “I liked it, you know. I got off, both times.”

“Still not your fault, Baby Bat,” he murmured, squeezing his hand. “You liked one or two things you started on your terms when you wanted it. That doesn’t mean all the things that happened when you didn’t want it or didn’t like it or didn’t know how to turn him down are okay.” He cut Billy off when he opened his mouth to protest, “I know you wouldn’t be cool with it if somebody else went through this exact thing. You wouldn’t let them say ‘well I started it once’. I know you wouldn’t, because that’s the kind of guy you are. Can’t you try to apply that to yourself? Give yourself a break, please, for once in your life.”

“…I don’t think I deserve it.”

Salem risked a quick kiss to Billy’s cheek. It was inappropriate and he knew it, but he couldn’t help it. He was so far gone on Billy even long after the break up that it was ridiculous. “I’m going to tell you what you told me when I said that about starving myself: then don’t do it for you. Do it for everybody who cares about you. And that’s a lot of people, Beebs. Try to be a little kinder to yourself. Please.”

Billy didn’t answer, and after a few moments Salem stood up, running a hand through Billy’s hair again, feeling lost and overwhelmed and incredibly fond, still, of this strangely serious, sometimes incredibly goofy, deeply compassionate guy he’d once been fortunate enough to date. That Billy was so concerned about whether or not Salem had really, truly been consenting that he went across town to ask in person said a lot about him. He wasn’t bad. Salem knew that from the moment he’d met him.

The tough part, it seemed, was getting Billy to believe that.


	35. storybook/playlist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darla helps. Pedro helps. Billy remembers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know y'all are here for Freebat content but sometimes recovery involves familial support, too.
> 
> For once, no CWs or TWs are necessary.
> 
> I took a break from studying to write this. I have a test on Tuesday that's a third of my grade in American Government class so this is light and fluffy because I need that in my life right now.

The person who helped Billy out of his funk was, of all people, Darla.

Though high on energy, she could settle herself down to read at a moment’s notice. One of her only really solid memories of her father is him teaching her to read as a very little kid (three, maybe closer to two, by Darla’s own math) and books remain a source of comfort for her. She curled up on the couch with one sometimes, or in her room, and once or twice brought on to the table. Darla could read for hours. Billy had no idea how she found the focus to do so; most of his reading had been done in bits and pieces whenever he could find the time, and sitting down to hammer out a book still seemed daunting.

He admired her ability to read well into the night. It was slightly less cool when it led to her being awake at one in the morning, when he spent thirty minutes in an icy cold shower freaking out about his latest wet dream involving Freddy. Yes, Freddy was his boyfriend, but it still felt messed up to think about him like that, and the cold was grounding. There was no way to zone out when he was shaking; the world slammed into hard focus, and that was enough to fight down the panic, right up until he opened the door to find her in the hall, clutching her book, concerned and sad-eyed.

“You were in there a long time,” she pointed out, not unkindly. “Did you have a bad dream?”

“Yeah.” He didn’t want to get into that with her, though, so he changed the topic. “Were you up late reading again?”

She nodded, reaching out for his hand. “You need hot cocoa. I’ll tell you about it downstairs.”

The house was quiet at night. If he lingered in the hall and stood still, he could hear Pedro’s soft snoring, or Eugene turning over and over in his sleep, yet that didn’t make much noise, all things considered. It was peaceful, despite the hurricane in his head. Darla placed her book on the counter as she made the hot cocoa and Billy didn’t question her. Sometimes she simply wanted to do something nice for people. Yesterday she’d made Mary a flower crown for no reason other than it being spring. She enjoyed doing something tangible and physical for her siblings, something that they could see, rather than only talking with them. Billy guessed he could understand that. He hated not knowing what to do, and so did she. She was just better at coming up with actions to take.

Curious despite himself, he reached out and picked up the book. _The Moorchild_ , the cover said, showing a picture of a dark-skinned girl with wild, bushy white-blonde hair. She looked awfully lonely, sitting alone in what Billy presumed was a moor, face downcast. He idly opened it up, reading the dedications page. _For every child who has ever felt different._ Billy swallowed, unsure why that unsettled him, and went back to looking at the cover. He couldn’t tell if the girl was black or Asian or something else; her hair was afro-textured, but her eyes were slanted and had monolids.

“That’s Saaski,” Darla said, setting a freshly microwaved mug of hot cocoa beside him. “She’s half fairy and half human.”

“Huh. That’s cool, I guess. Uh, what’s the story about?” If he didn’t keep the topic off of him, Darla would ask why he was so distant and anxious the past few days, and he wasn’t sure if he had any good answers for her.

She rummaged through the cupboard for marshmallows, which, to her, were a key part of the hot cocoa experience. “Well, fairies kick half fairies out. They swap her with a human baby, and she grows up with human parents who don’t really get her. But they love her so, so much, and she tries to be a good person. She doesn’t know she’s half fairy, nobody does, but people make fun of her anyway for looking weird.”

That… was not the answer he was expecting, honestly. In spite of his lack of love for ‘proper’ literature, he couldn’t help relating. A lot of kids in foster homes who didn’t look completely normal got bullied, from mixed race kids to kids with too many freckles to count to kids with disabilities like Freddy. Elio, Billy’s first real crush, had been picked on just for having thick eyebrows and big eyes. When kids got cruel, it didn’t take much for them to decide somebody was ugly. Glancing back at the cover art confirmed to him that yeah, Saaski would’ve been made fun of in modern times, too.

“Do things get better for her?” he asked, now genuinely interested. Darla dumped multiple giant marshmallows into his cup and bit her lip, mulling the answer over.

“Well… things were getting better for her for a while, but the people in the village get meaner and meaner to her, and start blaming her for things that aren’t her fault. And she’s trying really hard to be a good person. She _is_ good. She doesn’t understand what hate is, doesn’t feel it, even when the bullies really hurt her and they call her evil.” She frowned, sipping her cocoa. “All she wants is to be okay.”

That sentence resonated with Billy in a way he couldn’t comprehend. He wanted to cry. He wanted to find this fictional, non-existent kid and protect her from people. He wanted this kind of story to be pure fiction, instead of an everyday reality for people. “Is she gonna be okay?”

“I think so. The story has five parts, and I’m in the middle of part three. So… there’s still a lot of book left.”

They stayed in the kitchen like that, drinking hot cocoa and mulling their own thoughts over. The warmth of the drink seeped into him and drove off the cold sensation left over from the shower. He mulled the book over in his head. _She doesn’t understand what hate is. She doesn’t want to hurt people back who hurt her. And that’s… good. And I do that, too. I don’t want to hurt Jesse, or my mom, or anybody, really. I don’t hate Sivana, either, ‘cause that news reporter who dug into his dad said he was abused a lot as a kid. That doesn’t make what he did okay, but I don’t hate him. He needed somebody to do what Rosa, Victor, Freddy, Mary, Darla, Pedro and Eugene did for me and he didn’t have it._

_If I don’t hate people, then I can’t be all bad. I’m not perfect. I was a jerk, no excuses there, especially when I first got here. But I’m not hateful. I’m not bad. I want to be good. Maybe that’s enough._

When they were finished, they put their dishes in the sink, hugged, and went back to their respective beds. Billy stared up at the ceiling in the dark for a while, thinking. He turned the images his imagination produced of Darla’s book over and over in head. If he was looking at himself, things got complicated, the whirlwind of thoughts picked up until it was howling, screaming through his head. He never got anywhere trying to figure his life out in some kind of objective way. If Billy looked at things in the framing of a kid’s story, it was easier. Saaski was put in a strange place by parents who didn’t want her. People weren’t kind to her. She tried to be good, and she didn’t hate anyone, and all she wanted in the whole big wide world was to be okay. There was nothing wrong with that. There wasn’t anything wrong with a person who wanted that, there was something admirable, a little bit, about someone who went through that and didn’t snap back at the people who hurt them, and maybe she… maybe _he_ wasn’t terrible.

“You’re a good sister,” he told her the next morning as they got ready for school, meaning every word. “You’re the _best_ , Darla.”

She latched onto him in that lovably clingy way of hers, grinning when he hugged back. “Do you feel better now?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

 

* * *

 

 

Billy stared at his iPod, reading and rereading the list of songs that Pedro had compiled for him into a playlist simply titled ‘Past Tense’.

One of the only things Billy really remembered about his dad was his love of music. The ancient CD player he had on the kitchen table was always on when he was home and though Billy couldn’t remember C.C.’s face, he still knew his voice clear as day. Low and smooth, rolling r’s and curling his tongue around vowels in a way that was hard to describe, he’d sung while he cooked, did the dishes or helped clean the house, completely devoid of any shame. Billy’s mom would hum along, but if she ever sang a few words, she’d shut her mouth immediately once she realized it, red-faced and embarrassed despite no one saying a word to her about it. Still, C.C. could coax her into harmonizing with him for one song, and it was mentioning this song to Pedro that had gotten the younger boy to go looking for music for him.

“Write down whatever you remember about the songs,” he’d instructed Billy, handing him a pen. “I’ll find them.”

Billy hadn’t really believed that Pedro could. There was a lot of music in the world, after all, and only so much the internet could do. Still, the thought was nice, and it was something to do in study hall besides actually studying. Weeks ago he’d handed Pedro the exhaustive list which, frankly, was a mess. _I don’t remember the rest but the song opened with a guitar and then there’s a lyric about eyes bluer than robin’s eggs_ , he’d written about one. _One song is just a list of problems, something something you’re old enough to kill but not for voting, something something. Really happy piano and I think a trumpet, old-timey, and there’s a lot of whoa-ho-ho-oh-oh._

Under no circumstances did he expect anyone could put his terrible descriptions together enough to find a modern, well-known song, let alone whatever weird stuff his dad had been into. His dad’s tastes had been wildly mismatched and all over the place, much like C.C. himself a lot of the time. Much as Pedro was a music nerd, Billy was bad at describing songs, and he knew it. He wouldn’t have held it against him if the other boy gave up entirely which he’d assumed he had until he borrowed Billy’s iPod and handed it back without any explanation.

The title of the first song alone set off his dad’s voice in his head.

 _I'm a suspect, I'm a traitor,_  
_I'm only here in body visiting._  
_Yellow faces in the distance scream,_  
_"The beauty is in what isn't said!”_  
_I'm rising to my feet_

He sank down onto the couch, not bothering to check if any of his siblings saw. Let them see him be a little weird about this. They’d understand. He let the music wash over him and _remembered_ , remembered warm honey-gold eyes and strong hands, rich tawny-brown skin, a grin bright and mischievous and infectious as he grabbed Marilyn’s hand and twirled her on the cheap linoleum floor, making her laugh. Her tired face lit up, her hand so pale, so fragile, in his. They were deeply in love. Maybe in that moment she’d had room in her heart for Billy, he didn’t know, but she loved C.C. and he adored his son. He scooped him up time after time, holding him balanced in one arm, Billy’s legs locked around his side, and listened to Billy’s loud toddler singing, all volume and zero talent, and laughed like he loved it. He messed up Billy’s hair into a total mess, laughing, smiling.

Billy had forgotten so much of that. He sat in the living room, staring at nothing, as the playlist rotated through its’ assorted songs, each one setting off memories like fireworks in his mind. Over time, Jesse’s presence had eaten away at his mind, taking over all the space in his memory, and it had seemed as if he hadn’t had a childhood before he met the blond. That was a lie, though, a half-truth that he’d let infect him. He had a life before Jesse. He had parents who were way too young to have a kid, a ‘bedroom’ in the closet of a two-room apartment, dinners of ramen and McDonald’s chicken nuggets, a dad who sang and a mom who napped whenever she could and a tiger-striped blanket he carried around with him everywhere.

It wasn’t a perfect life. It wasn’t even objectively a really good one. But it was _his_. He, Billy Batson, had lived all of that before and without Jesse. He wasn’t completely comprised of things the other boy had talked him into doing or done to him. He was more than that. Billy cradled the proof of that, the humble playlist Pedro had miraculously cobbled together for him, in his hands.

And in that moment he knew that, as rough as things sometimes seemed, there was a lot of life left. His story wasn’t over, especially if the superhero comics Freddy loaned him were to be believed. He’d only recently gotten done with his origin story.

There was more to him, to anybody, than that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Darla is absolutely a fan of The Moorchild by Eloise McGraw and definitely cried reading it at least twice.
> 
> An Incomplete Playlist Of Songs Billy's Dad Definitely Sang Along To:
> 
> Chase This Light - Jimmy Eat World  
> The Music Goes Round And Round - Tommy Dorsey  
> Eve Of Destruction - Barry McGuire  
> Diamonds And Rust - Joan Baez  
> California Dreamin' - The Mamas And The Papas  
> Stranger - Endless Blue  
> Gloomy Sunday - Billie Holiday  
> Crowd Of Drifters - Magnetic Fields  
> The Bonny Swans - Loreena McKennitt


	36. Chapter 36

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy starts to get better at tuning out the past in favor of the present. Freddy remains a dork.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be up on Sunday but life got weird. Sorry, y'all.
> 
> TW/CW for references to coercive underage sex (re: Billy and Jesse) in the form of expanding upon one flashback and references to underage but consensual and loving fumbling around (via Billy and Freddy). If this content makes you uncomfortable, please just yeet yourself away from this fic. Reader safety and mental health comes first.

Billy woke up with a hard-on and made a concentrated effort not to hate himself for it.

First of all, Freddy was still asleep. Nobody had to know, and that was an instant relief; he sank back onto the mattress, feeling the tension slowly leave his shoulders. He’d always had a deep seated fear of anyone seeing him like this. The best case scenario was an excruciating, embarrassing rendition of ‘The Talk’ that always made him want to run away on the spot. The worst case scenario, which he’d managed to avoid for almost all his life, was someone realizing that something had happened to him to make him like this. _Because it did_ , he reminded himself, turning over to try to find a more comfortable position, _I’m not just… like this. Nothing’s wrong with me, I’m not easy or whatever. It's like, stuff happens and your brain gets used to it, and then it doesn't know what to do when that stuff isn't happening anymore, right?  
_

_I should get Malloy a fancy plant. I’m pretty sure without him I’d be freaking out right now._

No amount of Malloy’s constant assurances that this was normal could make it not be awkward, of course. Somehow that was beyond the ability of therapy to fix. But Billy could deal with awkwardness if that meant not having to deal with the panic this used to instill in him, or the disgust, or the rapid-fire thoughts about what might happen if someone saw. The only person currently in his life who ever saw him get turned on was Freddy, and Freddy was cool with it. Freddy was more than cool with it, actually, he seemed legitimately _surprised_ that Billy could be that into him. Apparently he still hadn’t realized what an awesome boyfriend he was despite the literal months Billy had spent staring at him with open affection.

Granted, Salem hadn’t been much better. If Billy didn’t have a habit of throwing the first kiss as well as the first punch, he probably wouldn’t have ever dated anyone else besides Jesse. _I have a type and it’s nerds with confidence issues. Great._ He snickered to himself, imagining both his ex and current boyfriend and how annoyed they’d be that that was his description of them. Billy meant ‘nerd’ in the nicest way possible, though. There was a kindness to dorky guys that made it all worth it. As far as he was concerned, Freddy was the guy too good to be true, here, not himself. How somebody else hadn’t gotten to him first, Billy would never know. Their school must’ve been full of morons. It was the only explanation.

“Nobody wants to bang the crippled kid.” Freddy had said _._ Billy hated that, what that implied. He didn’t like that Freddy thought that about himself, because what the hell? Freddy was funny and weird and awesome. He had great hair, eyes that made Billy want to kiss him the night he met him, and a smile that tore right through Billy’s defenses. Of course he wanted to sleep with this amazing guy who put up with his sarcasm, his panic attacks and his exhaustingly complicated past. How could Freddy be dating him and still say that, like it was an obvious fact? He was so amazing that Billy had been completely willing to blow him, and that was a form of sex that Billy wasn’t particularly comfortable with most of the time.

_(“Tell you what, you can pick what we do this time, okay? That sound fair?”_

_The world was getting smaller, walls closing in. There was nothing outside of this room, outside of this bed, trapped-trapped-trapped, and he had a thought,_ if I scream somebody will come stop this _, but Jesse’s eyes were wet with tears and franticly begging him to say yes, to say he loved him again. He’d said it to him and the older boy had practically come undone. In the three years they’d known each other, Billy had never seen him so completely open. Another thought hit him, along with a wave of guilt._ He loves me. I love him. This is what guys do when they’re in love.

_Jesse didn’t have anyone else. Neither did Billy. There wasn’t any other choice._

_“Okay, fair,” he conceded, and he couldn’t force his voice not to shake. His mind raced, trying to think of what the least bad option was. He didn’t want anything inside him. The thought made him break out in a cold sweat on the spot. There had to be another option, something people did when they were in love that wouldn’t hurt but that would still show Jesse he cared. “I guess, um… I mean, if it’s not too gross, I could maybe use my mouth?”_

Please just say no _, Billy thought, staring up at him._ Please just change your mind. Can’t we go back to what we used to do? That wasn’t so bad. _But the look in Jesse’s eyes wasn’t a no, and Billy felt small, helpless, as his boyfriend nodded and started undoing his pants. Billy’s gaze immediately diverted to anywhere except that, breath starting to come quicker, panic and confusion making his limbs heavy. He should have ran, but he couldn’t move, couldn't even turn his head away; everything seemed to be closing in and locking down, and he didn't know how to stop it. His hands shook as Jesse touched his face, trying to get him to make eye contact._

_“Hey,” Jesse said softly, almost gently. “It’s okay. It’s okay if it’s with somebody you love.”)_

Billy flinched in bed at the memory. But Jesse had a point, accidental as it might have been, because it actually _was_ an okay idea with Freddy. Freddy was super aware of what Billy was feeling, sometimes better at identifying that than Billy himself, and if Billy needed to stop, he knew Freddy would let him. That made it doable, somehow. Having an option to bail meant there wasn’t so much pressure, and it meant… well, it meant Freddy _cared_ about him, despite how bad they were at saying ‘I love you’ to each other in epic ways like superheroes in comics did to their significant others. And with someone he loved, and somebody he knew loved him back, the idea was actually kind of hot, in addition to being okay in terms of not freaking him out.

The only remaining hang up, then, was Freddy’s inability to think of himself as hot or worth touching, which was something Billy didn’t know how to address.

If he were braver, he’d climb down from the top bunk and show him just how wrong he was. That was how things got resolved in those highly explicit manga series Freddy had hidden away on his computer, and it was both spontaneous and sincere enough to seem like a halfway decent idea. The thought crossed his mind more than once at night. That moment they’d had when Freddy started kissing him after he took his shirt off was so spontaneous, felt so good and seemed so genuine he hadn’t had time to start overthinking things or panicking. Could they end up like that again? Would they have another moment where it all just somehow worked out? He swallowed, the temptation of possibly being happy like that outweighing the fear he had of botching this somehow.

_If this doesn't work I'm going to throw myself into the sea, I swear to God._

“Freddy? You awake?” he asked, and Freddy mumbled ‘no’ in that sleepy way that told Billy he was semi-awake. Freddy could lay in bed, perfectly still, eyes shut and daydreaming, for as long as it took for him to fall back asleep. It was almost like meditation. “…I’m coming down there.”

That statement made Freddy stretch, rocking the bed and blinking himself into a more awake state of mind. “What is it? You okay?”

“Yeah.” And he _was_ , and that was so wild, to him, that he wasn’t about to bolt outside for another ill-advised three am jog through the neighborhood. “I just… I kinda wanna make out and you’re not actually asleep, so… shit, that makes me sound pervy, sorry-”

“Dude, you can _always_ wake me up for random make outs.” Freddy grinned at him, scooting over so Billy could get into bed beside him. “I mean that’s how, like, fifty percent of all my best dreams start, seriously-”

Billy kissed him. He was too cute and dorky to resist, and all he felt in that moment was overwhelming fondness for this absurdly sweet, chill guy he’d somehow managed to get with. There was no anxiety in the way his body reacted to Freddy reached over and tangled his hand in Billy’s hair, no spike of fear when he acted on the impulse to slip his tongue into Freddy’s mouth, no more spiraling sudden bursts of oh-shit-run. He relaxed against him, somehow relieved. This was all he really wanted, he guessed – not sex, not even necessarily second base, just to know he had the option of either without a total meltdown being imminent. And that wasn’t dirty, that was simply not wanting to be miserable, so that was probably okay. His inner Malloy approved, anyway, and Billy tried to heed the words of his inner Malloy more regularly these days rather than his inner Jesse. It was okay to make out with his boyfriend. This was better than okay, really, this was really nice, in a way he hadn't realized he needed.

Freddy nudged a leg inbetween Billy’s as they tangled up in each other and paused when he realized what he was doing, pulling back from the kiss enough to look at his boyfriend. _God, he’s so perfect,_ Billy thought, following up that thought with, _I wish I wasn't worrying him. Maybe I should get him a plant, too._ It was a little embarrassing to know his boyfriend worried about him like that, but it was good, too, to feel cared about and like someone was handling him with care. He smiled warmly at Freddy, pressing a quick kiss to his cheek before grabbing him by the hip and guiding him closer, a nonverbal _it’s okay_ that he hoped conveyed how very, very okay it was. Freddy squeaked, undignified and caught off guard. Billy kissed him again, immediately.

“You’re _cute_ ,” Billy accused, and Freddy huffed out a sigh.

“You suck, dude. We were having a moment!”

Billy shrugged, unrepentant. “I mean, _I’m_ still having one, I don’t know about you…”

“…yeah, this is a moment. Um,” Freddy flushed, red cheeks visibly darkening even in the low, low lighting provided by the window. He was hard against Billy, who was far too used to that kind of thing to register that it was even awkward. “I, uh, I kind of don’t know what else to do? What do you like?”

“A lot of stuff. I’m not picky,” he said, which was the kind of vague reply that made Freddy roll his eyes at him in almost any situation. He felt it as much as he saw it in the dim light. “Fine, you’re right, that’s a shit answer. Uh, I liked what you did the other day, and I like it when you kiss my neck, and… I’m sure there’s more but I’m drawing a total blank here. Sorry. It’s like when you’ve got a really important test and you didn’t study, I guess.”

Freddy smiled widely at him. “Aw. I think you’re important too, Billy.” Inexplicably, he managed to get the salient point from that babble, which was part of why Billy loved him. “It’s cool, we can wing it. We don’t plan superhero-ing and that goes fine, so, uh, we got this.”

“Romantic as fuck, Freeman. The real Shakespeare of our time.” Billy kissed him again, mostly to cut off any further banter, partially to get to press his thigh inbetween Freddy’s knees and confirm that yes, he was in fact into this. A wave of relief rolled over him, as if some part of his subconscious had fully expected Freddy to suddenly want to bail out. His boyfriend moaned against him, hips shifting into the touch. “What, um, what do _you_ like?”

“…” He opened his mouth to reply, paused, shut it, took a breath, thought it over, and opened it again. “I actually have no idea? My dreams are kind of shit at explaining what I’m actually into, it just sort of skips from making out to the ending, so… um, I kind of like it when you mess with my hair?” He gave Billy a look that screamed ‘is that what you were looking for?’

He shrugged, willing to roll with it. “I can work with that. Wh-”

Billy was interrupted by a ray of magenta light searing in through the window. He turned and stared at it, openly annoyed and mildly furious. _That can’t be a superhero thing. My timing **cannot** be so crappy it’s a superhero thing I’m going to have to go fight before I can spend the night with my boyfriend. It’s not-_ loud, cacophonous evil laughter interrupted his train of thought. Freddy groaned and buried his face in his hands, and Billy flopped onto his back, muttering multiple curses under his breath. He had half a mind to ignore it and just keep going, but that would mean one of their siblings would go fight it, and then he’d have to explain to them why he hadn’t gone out to fight evil. The very idea of the rest of the house knowing he’d gotten laid was enough to haul him out of bed despite his continued grumbling, slipping on his shoes so he and Freddy could go sneak out.

“I bet this never happens to Superman,” Freddy sighed, fumbling for his hat as Billy hit the lights. “I heard he has a fortress or fort or whatever in the middle of nowhere, and he just hangs out there.”

His nose crinkled. “Dude, we’re not making out in our lair. It’s like, the least romantic place in the history of anything. The chairs aren't even comfy! Plus our whole family goes in and out of there ever since we decided to stash stuff we don’t need in there. I am _not_ going to risk Darla walking in on us.”

“Fine, fine. Whatever. Not like we can compete with the raw romance of dinner at the Waffle House.” Freddy ducked just out of reach as Billy swatted at him, annoyed.

“Hey, I like Waffle House!" He frowned, half-annoyed. "Okay, _now_ we’re not having a moment. Dick.”

“Asshole.”

“Sidekick.”

“…I love you,” Freddy said, and Billy couldn’t help stopping and leaning over to kiss him before they tiptoed down the stairs.

“Same, dude. Same.”


	37. Chapter 37

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Officer Xiong draws closer to the truth than she realizes. Eugene gets in deeper than he means to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A chapter of OC focused proceeds a chapter of full Billy focus. Bear with me, people.
> 
> TW/CW for inferred sex between Jesse and Lina. It's not explicitly stated or described but it's there.

Officer Xiong took one look at the broken remains of the sidewalk and sighed. 

“Red, I’m going to assume you _tried_ to mitigate the property damage,” she said, holding out a cup of coffee to him. “Because the Chief is going to _hate_ you after this.”

Shazam, aka Red Thunder, aka The White Cape, aka a dozen other things, looked around and sighed deeply, just as annoyed by this as she was. “I mean, I don’t exactly have a plan to fight a guy with an honest-to-God laser energy gun thing, but I tried. He didn’t get any buildings or people.”

“Good enough.” She handed him a coffee, then held one out to Freddy aka Blue Battler aka Azure Lightning aka half a dozen other things. “Hey, Blue. Nice to meet you. Is that my perp you’re holding?”

Freddy triumphantly held up a bad guy, who he had tied up by the wrists with duct tape from the nearby hardware store. “Yup! This doesn’t count as illegal capture or something, right?”

“No. It’s a citizen’s arrest of someone guilty of wielding a weapon they’re not licensed for, disturbing the peace, endangering civilians and doing property damage. That’s plenty of cause to wrangle him.” She grabbed the unconscious bad guy, frowning, and loaded him into the car. “You didn’t have to knock him out, though.”

“He ran into a streetlight running away from us,” Billy explained, and Officer Xiong visibly did a double-take. “Yes, really. It’s been a weird night.”

She shook her head, baffled. Philly had never been an easy beat, but no one had braced her for what a weird one it would be. Superheroes, clashes between fascists and counter-protestors dressed up like Gritty, twelve year olds beating each other unconscious for the sake of designer sneakers, and now a random guy with a laser gun. She carefully bagged that, placing it aside. The bomb squad might want a look at it; she really wasn’t sure since this hadn’t exactly been covered in her training. Per protocol, she called in for an ambulance, though a careful taking of vitals seemed to indicate the laser gun wielding man – boy, she corrected herself, he looked about fourteen – was fine.

“No permanent damage,” she assured a worried-looking Blue. “Just his ego. Maybe a mild concussion, but he’ll be fine.”

Both of the superheroes nodded, looking relieved. They weren’t here to commit murders in the name of justice. They wanted to stop criminals and then let her take it from there, as aboveboard as possible. She was glad. God knew that made her job easier, and it was an incredible relief to know the heroes hadn’t let the power go to their heads yet. After all the shit she saw on the job, a little wholesomeness went a long way.

Billy – Red, to her – introduced her to his obvious boyfriend and even more obvious partner in fighting crime. Ideally, they’d end up able to work together at the start of fights, not midway or after one, but they had apparently been nearby, far nearer to the fight than her. They had the good sense to avoid property damage, warn people to get cover, and keep the focus of the perp on them, not on innocent targets. She was frankly impressed. This was still going to be a paperwork nightmare, but it was one without a body count and that counted for a lot. She’d heard enough Gotham horror stories that she wasn’t going to start complaining about some broken sidewalk. Concrete was replaceable, and Xiong was deeply out of damns to give when it came to how much the mayor might complain about the optics. Dead people were worse optics, for one, and for another, Philly had worse problems than this facing it.

“You two can yeet on out of here now; I can do the rest,” she informed them, smiling at their dual sighs of relief. “Yeah, I know the feeling. Not much of a romantic night out, huh?”

Both of them stared at her like deer in headlights. “Uh, how-”

“It’s a body language thing, Red. You two are obvious. Cute, but obvious.” She reached up to pat him on the shoulder as his cheeks turned as red as his costume. “Don’t worry, it’s not a big deal. We’re in Philly. Nobody cares. My wife makes my office cookies and nobody says anything except ‘give me your recipe’ and ‘are there more’.”

“I want cookies,” the hero in blue groused, startling a slew of giggles out of her.

“Dude, we’re having _two_ cakes at my birthday party,” the other superhero pointed out, sounding both annoyed and surprised. “How much sugar do you need?”

“Enough to make up for working until dawn when we have class in four hours!”

 _College students?_ , she wondered, tucking that information away for later. _Wow, that sucks. I suppose that explains how Red got my number, though – some of the kids I’ve worked with are in college, definitely._ While Xiong didn’t have any intention to look into their secret identities, since that would be adding to her own workload and frankly she didn’t have the time, it was an interesting thought. In a way it was a perfect cover. Nobody would look at two buff bro-looking dudes in their eight AM College Writing class and put it together, no matter how much they looked like the heroes on the news. She respected the hustle.

More importantly: “Happy birthday, Red.”

He smiled, big and wide, like a child. “Thanks! Hopefully the rest of it goes better than this.”

“Yeah, hopefully. Tell you what, Red, swing by the Waffle House at noon and I’ll get you some of my wife’s cookies and buy you lunch. I think we’ve still got some white chocolate cranberry ones left over, if that’s your thing?”

“Dude! Lady bro! High five,” he exclaimed, holding up his hand, and she laughed as she high fived him in return. “You’re the man! I mean, woman.”

“And you two are adorkable.”

_And I will tase anyone who hurts you two. Whatever your age is, you’re just kids deep down. Kids need to be kept safe._

 

* * *

 

 

Eugene woke up to the sound of his phone buzzing.

He was a tech nerd. He accepted it long ago as a good thing, because while he’d gotten picked on at different schools for various reasons, it had never been due to his nerdy interests. If anything, his knowledge of robotics, hacking and games made older kids grudgingly respect him. Even tough girls like Lina thought his ability to do science was cool. And so, in the grand spirit of ‘all problems can be solved with computers’, he’d made her a mostly-functional cellphone so she could call him or text him whenever she wanted. It wasn’t hard. Eugene had made one for his mother before; he knew what to do.

Mostly, Lina had used this gift for good. Pictures of cool things she found while exploring abandoned buildings, weird food she saw out and about, and various cats she befriended were now a daily part of his life. They also talked about video games, which she was slowly owning up to liking. She wasn’t good at it, but she didn’t have to be. The point was to have fun, not to be perfect. Eugene was a competitive gamer, not a jackass one. All he needed was to see her happy to know introducing her to gaming was a good choice. Despite how much alarm his relationship with her instilled in Victor and Rosa, they weren’t doing anything wrong. Most of the time, they were pretty boring, actually – in a good, wholesome sort of way he’d decided was pretty much perfect.

Then there were mornings like this morning.

_Eugene, can you hack some doctor’s computer or something? I need help._

She couldn’t have been more alarming if she’d sent a message saying ‘panic now’. He shoved his glasses onto his face and texted back immediately. _What’s wrong? Do you need to go to the hospital?_

Lina paused before answering, which was never a good sign. _I’m bleeding from inbetween my legs and it’s not my period. It’s happened before but this time it’s not stopping. It hurts._

He felt his throat go dry. Eugene actually knew a fair amount about medicine. He’d treated his mom’s physical and mental illnesses for years. He could clean cuts, apply butterfly sutures, clean wounds and take vitals. This, though, was something that had simply never come up in his life before. Once his dad died, his mom gave up on all other men. Until two girls at his last foster home talked about periods in front of him, he hadn’t known basic facts about even that much. This? This was totally out of his league.

What he _did_ know was that this meant Lina and her other boyfriend had… ew. He cringed, then looked around guiltily despite it being too early for anyone to be up and his door being closed. It felt weird. Thinking about anyone doing that was still really uncomfortable. Thinking about Lina and Jesse doing that made his stomach twist and churn almost painfully. He wasn’t sure why someone would be bleeding from, um, there, if it wasn’t that time of the month. Googling it felt too embarrassing to attempt. He certainly couldn’t ask Rosa. But some part of him, the part that had always told him he wouldn’t be able to take care of his mom forever, told him it was because Jesse was doing something wrong. Maybe it was an accident, though? Jesse was trying to help her get back to her extended family and he bought her things and gave her money. He cared. He was just messing something up.

Well, he wasn’t going to be able to figure that out without some Google searches that would make him sick, so the best thing was to figure out where to go. Hospitals were out of the question. Doctors involved foster parents, which led to CPS and Social Services and awkward questions and being forced to leave good homes for uncertain futures. What options that left were few and far between. He didn’t have money for any of the places he managed to look up, he didn’t have the ability to fake the paperwork to get around the paperwork hurdles, and he had no idea how to patch this up on his own. If only he were back in Pittsburgh-

He sat up, eyes going wide as he texted out his train of thought. _I’m going to fly over and grab you and we’re going to go back to my old neighborhood. I know somebody who can help you there. I’ll be over in 30!_

The reply was almost instant. _Thank you thank you thank you I’ll be on the roof! ILU!_

 _ILU too._ He tried not to think about how many times he’d had this exact kind of moment with his mom back in their old house, and how often there hadn’t been anything that could be done for her. That was different. Back then he was plain old Eugene, nobody. Now he was That One Superhero In Gray, as the internet had dubbed him.

And that wasn’t exactly ideal, either, but he could make it work.


	38. This Time Around

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If there's a light at the end, it's just the sun in your eyes.
> 
> We start going into endgame now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: This chapter contains references to underage sex, teenager-on-child sex (Jesse, in other words), a couple of explicit details about said sex, incest, mention of sexual abuse in the foster care system, and a lot of Jesse's bullshit rationalizations for the terrible things he's done. This is a lot. The part of this chapter focused on Billy isn't bad, but after that it's a lot and for the love of all that is holy, PRACTICE SAFE READING. This is the darkest we've gotten in a long ass time and the most graphic in terms of noncon we're ever going to get in this entire fic.
> 
> Depiction is not synonymous with endorsement. The views of the chronic criminal known as Jesse Dobrescu do not reflect the views of the author. They *do* reflect bullshit lines I've heard from various abusers over the year, but nothing here is meant to absolve him of the horrible things he's done. An explanation and an excuse are not the same thing.

Billy’s birthday brought with it a bundle of nerves, and he wasn’t sure he knew how to deal with that.

He tried to push away thoughts of Jesse, of the many birthdays he’d spent with him. Somewhere in the back of Billy’s mind was the memory, faint and faded, of a birthday with his mother spent at the Waffle House. The waiter gave him free pancakes and ruffled his hair. His mom had been very tired, but had managed some smiles for him on their way to the park, where he rushed over to the swings happily. It wasn’t perfect, maybe wasn’t a well-recalled day given how young he’d been, and it was definitely one of the cheapest conceivable birthdays. He’d gotten a plastic toy shark for a gift and a cupcake for a birthday cake.

He had a life before Jesse. He was now in the midst of living a life after him. Both were important. He just had to learn to remember that.

As once before, he was awoken by the squeals of Darla and Shay’s smooth, rolling voice. He wasn’t sure what Mary’s girlfriend had brought his sister, and weighed his curiosity against his desire to stay in bed. Some mornings were hard. Billy wanted to stay asleep until the day was done, without really knowing why. Everything seemed so giant and vast, so hard to deal with, that he wasn’t sure he could deal with life. His mom alone was a lot to deal with. Sometimes he wanted to curl up beside Freddy until life made sense again. As much as he was trying to live in the present and all the good that entailed, sometimes it was all just _so much_ that he couldn’t comprehend it.

But it was Darla’s birthday too, technically, and she wanted him at her party. So he forced himself up, ran a comb through his hair and tried to look like he wasn’t exhausted inside. His head hurt. His legs felt heavy. Moving was an unreasonable amount of effort, and he wondered if he was psychologically tired or actually tired. _I hope it’s the second thing. Maybe it’s a growth spurt and I’ll get to be tall like Batman. That’d be dope._ With that hope in his heart, he went down to the living room, where Shay was helping Darla into ballet shoes.

Billy blinked, confused. “I didn’t know Darla liked ballet.”

“My mom was a ballerina; it was her job,” Darla said softly, smile growing sad for a moment before she perked up. “Auntie Shay helped me find a place to take lessons! And she got me a leotard and shoes, too.”

“And you look great in them,” Mary assured her, looking over at Shay and mouthing ‘thank you’. They grinned at each other, partners in crime. _Big mom energy,_ Billy thought, but wisely decided not to say, even if the mental image of Darla with two mommies was precious.

Instead, he scrunched up his nose at Shay. “I hope that’s not your present to me. I can’t even mosh right.”

“How do you know that?” Mary asked.

Memories of the month he’d spent rooming with a metalhead teenager who’d done her best to get Billy into metal, punk and industrial music flashed through his head. That was a weird thirty days, in retrospect, especially when he factored in the fact that he normally didn’t try that much to get along with his roommates. Perhaps it was the sincerity of Vee, the asexual metalhead painter with a love of peanut butter, or maybe it was that no one else had ever tried to befriend him without some kind of attraction being in the mix, but Billy had given it a shot. He was ten and a dork and a cool, intellectual older girl wanted to hang out – of course Billy had spent time with her. He’d come to the conclusion at the end of that time that the music wasn’t for him, the clothes that were a part of the metal scene felt weird to him and Vee was deeply bizarre, none of which really explained the time he jumped on the bed and attempted to headbang. _Ten year old me was lame_ , he noted to himself. _What a tryhard edgelord, ugh. The cringe is strong. I’m so glad nobody has pictures of my shitty attempt at spiky hair – OH SHIT VEE MIGHT. Note to self, track her down and ask her to delete them._

“Long story,” he shrugged, dutifully helping Darla up from the couch so she could try out her shoes. “But seriously, I am absolute garbage at dancing. It’s why I hate school dances.”

“Nobody dances at those,” Shay pointed out wisely. “I’ve been dancing as a hobby since I was four and even _I_ don’t dance at those things, except maybe one or two slow dances, and that’s mostly trying to be nice, not trying to dance. So no, I didn’t get you dance shoes or something. I got you something significantly better.”

Freddy trudged in, clad in his Batman pajama bottoms and matching Batman-logo shirt. “My gift is better. Not that it’s a competition, but I’m winning.”

“Everyone wins on birthdays,” Darla said sagely, with wisdom beyond her years. She bit her lip, considering what she was going to say, before very hesitantly offering up, “My dad said that once, after he made hamantaschen for my mom for her birthday and he got to lick the batter bowl.”

 _What the heck is hamantaschen?_ Billy thought, but didn’t ask. Darla’s memories of her parents were very slowly coming back in tiny, bite-sized fragments, and she was still learning how to talk about them. Everyone in the house always looking at her with obvious concern whenever she mentioned them had only made her more self-conscious about it. That they were all waiting for the moment she got a glimpse into the death of her parents went unspoken among them; mentioning it would just be tempting fate, and they didn’t know how to talk about it, anyway. Billy had only recently gotten Freddy to tell him what happened. He really, really wished he hadn’t.

He wanted Darla to be happy. He wanted all his siblings to be happy, damnit, and he was going to make a concentrated effort today to be a normal kid. He’d be eager to get presents, he’d eat cake, and if Victor or Rosa got mushy over him he’d just roll with it. Billy wasn’t great at trying to be normal for his sake. For Darla, though, he’d get through today with a smile on his face.

This mentality lasted right up until his phone buzzed, derailing the entire day with a few simple texts from Eugene.

_Can you come get me? I got hurt and I can’t get my superpowers to work._

_I’m in Narberth - Victor and Rosa know the address._

_Please hurry._

 

* * *

 

Jesse pulled Lina’s hair back, running the fancy brush he’d bought for her through it in smooth, even motions.

‘Bought’ was a stretch. He’d stolen it, but he’d paid for other things he bought at that place at the time. That sort of ploy always kept people from looking too closely into anyone’s bags, especially in smaller stores with less thorough security measures. He was blond, gray-eyed and clean cut looking. A polite smile and a forged Boston accent could put him above suspicion. And if, every once in a while, he wanted to use that to get Lina the things she deserved in life, well, that wasn’t the worst thing he’d done.

It wasn’t that he thought that solid silver brushes and antique pins could undo the damage he’d done. But they could prove his sincerity when he apologized, or he hoped they could, anyway. He was trying.

“It’s okay if you’re mad at me,” he told her quietly, braiding her hair in well-practiced motions. “I’m mad at myself, too. I shouldn’t have – I’m sorry. You don’t have to forgive me.”

“…I’m not mad at you.” Lina fidgeted with the latest pretty scarf he’d gotten her, a pastel yellow silk one that she tied and untied into knots. “But you really hurt me. You should let me go to the doctor.”

His grip on the brush handle tightened until his knuckles whitened, and he took several deep breaths. The almost-falling sensation that sometimes came during a fight or in the middle of a particularly risky theft washed over him, a mix of adrenaline and rapid-fire thinking. Could he trust their current foster parents not to hand Lina away after this? Could he trust whoever they handed her to not to hurt her? Maybe he could survive prison, but Lina wasn’t as tough as he was, no matter what she pretended or said.

“No. Absolutely not. If I go to jail, you’re out a ride home and funds to get there even if you could find another ride, and trust me, you don’t want this on your record. People hate an imperfect victim.” _People hate victims with rich dads who don’t have a Boston accent and a perfect, polite smile._ He forced a reassuring grin for her, shoving down his own run-ins with the system when she twisted in her chair to look at him, dark eyes wide with concern. “I can take care of you. I’ll call into school for you and everything, alright? No school, no asshole racist bullies to deal with, no sharing the TV with other kids today – we’ll watch whatever you want, get ice cream and rest. How’s that sound?”

She bit her lip, weighing her options. “I guess that’s not so bad. But, Jesse…”

Lina trailed off, dropping her gaze down to her hands and the silk fabric she was toying with. When Jesse first met her, she was like that all the time, reserved, quiet, watchful, big eyes that saw everything and an unnatural stillness to her. He knew the type. He’d _been_ the type, once upon a time, too afraid to act. Once he’d gotten the staff at the group home to give her more space, more time to grieve, she started to open up. That had been a waiting game, but he knew how to wait for that, how to say nothing until it was time to say the magic words to most foster kids: it’s not your fault. And once he’d said that, pretty much any kid was putty in his hands.

He knew to say it because no one had ever said it to him. The resentment that caused left him side-eyeing most counselors and Social Services workers when they interacted with the other kids. They might have meant well. Most of them did, actually, now that he was out of the crowded Philly system and into Narberth’s. The thing they didn’t get, that _no one_ got, was that sometimes a kid needed to have someone on their side in a way they understood. Kids didn’t understand nuanced statements about how they were being put into the system for their own good, they were being transferred to another new home for their own good, they would never see their family again for their own good – nothing could make ‘for your own good’ land the way adults intended it to. What kids needed was to be told this was unfair, and fucked, and not remotely their fault. Even Salem’s consistently controlled expressions and near flawless air of detachment came undone when Jesse told him that, once upon a time.

Of course, they’d only reached any kind of truce right before they went their different ways. Jesse was shit at timing. He didn’t lie to himself about that. He’d dropped the ball, repeatedly, with a lot of people in his life.

 _Not with Lina, though_ , he told himself firmly, grabbing her jacket for her. _This time, everything’s going to be perfect. I’m not going to lose her and I’m not going to walk away from her. It’s going to be different now._ He cupped her face, leaning down to kiss her. She was small and soft, sort of the way he’d always figured angels might look. One look at her file had set an indignant fire in his admittedly icy, somewhat callous heart. This poor girl, stranded thousands of miles from the only home she’d ever really known, forced by a quirk of the Pennsylvania legal system to enter foster care here, _here_ , on the opposite end of the continent from where she needed to be. And then everyone expected her to get over it and be on her best behavior, as if the natural reaction to being caged wasn’t to lash out, to scream, to trash the cage until other people had to see that you were hurting.

He saw. He looked at her destroyed room, walked in on her carving up the wall one day with an X-Acto knife, and said quietly, “You must really be hurting.”

From the moment she’d turned around with tears in those deep, dark deer eyes, he’d been completely in love with her. “Yeah,” she had admitted, tears finally spilling over her cheeks. “And nobody even cares.”

“I care.”

And he’d continued to care, ever since. If he could divorce caring from touch, he’d probably know how to keep from turning caring into love. With love came the inevitable realization that she was too small, too young, and no one was ever going to understand that he wanted to keep her safe from everything. No one would listen to him. They wouldn’t understand that he was trying to make her happy, trying to give her hope, doing whatever he could to keep that last little flicker of inner fire she had from going out. He recognized madness, too, because he’d spent a lot of time staring at his reflection these past few months and hating what he saw. He saw her do stupid shit that might get her killed and remembered what it was like to be right on that edge, hoping to slip up and just have it all be over with. He was doing the same thing himself sometimes, therapy be damned, medication be damned, in the wake of the reality that he didn’t have Billy in his life anymore.

 _(“If you love him, you will walk away from him, Jesse,”_ _Salem told him, part bargain and part outright manipulation. He closed the distance between them when Jesse started to look away, demanding his attention, eyes hard with disgust even as his voice was low and controlled._ “ _You’re not going to fix anything like this. You’re just making everything worse. Walk away. Maybe you didn’t mean to, but you’ve hurt him, you keep hurting him, and that’s not what love is.”_

_“…what’ll you give me?”_

_“What?”_

_“To walk away,” Jesse clarified, still not meeting Salem’s eyes. “What’ll you give me t’ leave? I don’t have anything left except him. You’re gonna have to motivate me.”_

_Salem smiled almost smugly, disgusted but not remotely surprised. “Of course.” Somehow, those two words cut deeper than anything else he could have said. He hadn’t expected Jesse to be decent and frankly Jesse couldn’t blame him, but that didn’t stop him from wanting to hurt someone – Salem, himself, it hardly mattered, just so long as there was pain smeared across the walls. “I’ve got a few ideas…”)_

He had walked away. It left him swapping ill-gotten cash for Ativan with a local pharmacist and spending hours in the waiting rooms of therapists who pretended to understand what he was going through. The loss hollowed him out until there was nothing left inside him, until he was acting fine only because acting fine got him a paycheck and a paycheck got him pills to pass out on. But he’d _done it_ , Jesse had walked away from the person he’d loved and adored and wanted to be with forever, because he’d promised to, because he remembered the way Billy couldn’t answer him that night, and because of Salem’s unsurprised, flat, “Of course."

He just couldn’t bring himself to do it _again_ when he found himself orbiting someone else, turning a new person with a deeper hurt and a bigger heart into a reason to live. Jesse wasn’t the fairytale romance Lina deserved; he couldn’t undo the things that had brought her to this town on the wrong end of the country for her. What he could do, however, was give her a future worth living for, bring her back to a family that loved her, and keep her from crashing and burning entirely. He just needed to mind the size difference, the age gap, a little bit better. Jesse needed to go slower, do more to make sure she was physically ready, and that was on him. He knew it was. He kissed her softly and lovingly and let her wrap her arms around his neck, ignoring the pain in his back from the angle. Relationships were always fucked. Nobody had ever taught Jesse how to properly gauge what he was doing before he did it.

_(“Just don’t think about it,” his mother had advised him, pushing him down until he was kneeling inbetween her legs, and Jesse couldn’t make himself look ahead so he just looked at the carpet of the living room. Trapped inbetween the couch and the coffee table, he felt the world closing in even as his mom ran a hand through his white-blond hair, so perfectly identical to her own, her sweet doll of a boy, her lovely toy. “Just do it. You love me, right?”_

_He did. He did, and women had needs, when their husbands were gone all the time. She'd explained everything to him so clearly. His dad should’ve been doing this but he wasn’t here, was too busy making fancy business deals and showing off things at the company to other people, so Jesse had to do his job. Which was okay. He loved his parents, so it was fine, and he loved his dad so he didn’t mind doing his job for him… eventually. He was too young to understand the first time, and at first he more than minded. He cried and choked and squirmed, but his mom stroked his hair and told him he was doing a great job, and eventually the resistance drained out of him. She told him exactly what to do and where to put his tongue and how to do it right and promised she loved him, adored him, he was so, so good. He was a good boy. He was a big boy. And she promised him so many nice things, if only he'd be good.  
_

_Afterwards, his mother did things Jesse was far too young to have any words for, to 'make it even', whatever that meant. He wasn't even in first grade. He didn't know what was happening anymore. As he laid there on the couch afterwards with his mom, all he knew was that it felt good. He did a good thing for his mom, his mom returned the favor, and that was all he ever really took from it.  
_

_Everything, absolutely everything, was okay if it felt good.)_

God help and forgive him, he liked making other people happy. He liked it when someone came undone under his touch, when he got Lina off twice with his hands and without putting a single digit in her, when he worked her up until he could see on her face that it didn’t hurt at all when he finally pushed inside her. He loved it when he was with Billy, too, when he got him hard and worked up and flustered. He always waited until the person he with was obviously into it. Jesse made sure the feeling went both ways, he let the other person pick what they were doing sometimes, he didn’t call all the shots and by God, people could tell him no and he’d back off. He was a better lover than anyone he’d personally been with – and oh, that number had gone up once he hit the foster care circuit and found out just how much worse things could get. If you were being abused at home, you could go to a foster home. If you were being abused in a foster home, your only options were to run away, give a semi-sympathetic foster dad a blowjob to get him to stop the other kids, or find a way to bribe or threaten the other kids and staff.

Jesse had explored all his options over the years. Maybe a better option for his sanity would have been to cut his losses and leave entirely. Instead, he lingered, unable to shake the paranoia that some other kid was going to get hurt. Eventually he ended up working in a group home, because normal life wasn’t an option for someone shaped, broken and reshaped by the system. He didn’t trust the world outside of what he knew. He knew that perfectly respectable, sweet, upstanding foster parents were into some kinky shit behind the scenes, and while he was garbage at saving himself, he could at least try to save other people.

That he was saving kids from what he himself essentially was didn’t occur to him, because this was different. He was different. He wasn’t getting off and then ditching someone, he was in love and he was going to fix Lina’s life. It wasn’t the same thing. He wasn’t a monster.

He rested his forehead against Lina’s, voice low and ashamed. “You know I’m sorry, right? You know I didn’t mean to hurt you?”

“Yeah.” She wrapped her legs around his waist, and he readily obliged the not-so-subtle request to be picked up. Sometimes, Lina liked being treated as if she were delicate. “I know. I guess I just wish…”

“Go on, kiddo.” He pressed a kiss to her cheek, affectionately. “I’m listening.”

“Promise not to be mad at me?”

He absolutely could not promise that. Sometimes anger rose up inside him so suddenly and intensely that he’d cut his own throat or set the room he was in on fire just to get some relief, if only he were allowed to. He promised so anyway without hesitation. “Of course.”

“I sort of… I texted someone. A friend, I, um,” she buried her head in his chest, too afraid or timid or ashamed to look him in the eyes. “I told him everything."

_("How much did you tell him?" his mother asked, drawing closer as Jesse leaned over the duck pond's railing to hand a sickly goose some bread. "Just because he's your biological father doesn't mean he loves you the way I do. Not everyone loves the way I do, Jay. You can't tell any old person about us."_

_"But we told Dad, and he's alright so long as he gets a turn." The seven year old laughed as the goose grabbed the bread and tried to eat it in one big bite. "Silly, you're gonna make yourself sick! You gotta get at least four bites. That's what my mom says when I eat sandwiches," he informed the disinterested bird. Smiling, he turned to his mother, who was standing stock still, a grey-clad figure with icy tendrils of platinum blonde hair whipping in the wind. "Right, Mom?"_

_She looked at the water, trying to gauge if she could see the bottom. How deep did it have to be for a kid to have an 'accident', while her back was turned?_

_Jesse didn't know enough to back away as she approached with grim determination in her eyes. "Mom? What's wrong?"_

_He never saw it coming.)_

“…I'm not mad, Lina. I just want to talk to him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to apologize for the lengthy lack of an update. College has been intense and I've been unreasonably busy, but I've only got one final left and then you'll get more updates over the winter break.
> 
> I'd also like to apologize for the many ways in which I've probably ruined anyone's preconceived notions of Jesse by giving him this much of a spotlight.
> 
> I realized I made a typo regarding the age Jesse was when he got put into foster care in a past chapter, so I edited it. My bad, y'all.


	39. Dog Teeth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You’re cold on the inside  
> There’s a dog in your heart  
> And it tells you to tear everything apart  
> You draw blood just to taste it  
> You hold bones just to break them  
> You ruin everything you touch  
> And destroy anyone you love  
> You’re all over me
> 
> \- Nicole Dollanganger, "Dog Teeth"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for incest mentions (Jesse's mom), pedophilia (Jesse's relationship with Lina), attempted murder, and the rationalizations of a predator. At this point, you know what you're in for. Practice safe reading. These endgame chapters are going to be rough before they get better.

Eugene transformed back into his normal self in Narberth’s park.

The thick trees kept anyone from seeing him, and while Lina could keep his secret, he knew not everybody else would. She’d texted him to say she was going to walk to the park to make sure her neighbors didn’t see him – random kids entering and leaving a group home could make a nosy neighbor call Social Services to let them know, which they needed to avoid. As much trouble as she might be in for skipping school to go to the doctor, she didn’t want to get in trouble for having friends over without letting anyone know on top of that. This was a bad enough day as it was. (And although she mentioned it really offhandedly, she didn’t want him to get in trouble either. The thought made him feel warm inside. She cared. She didn’t always say it in those exact words, but she cared, and he cared about her, too.)

A bird’s song behind him startled him. He exhaled, shaking his head. Eugene was always jumpy when he did things he knew were a little wrong. When he used to forge his mom’s signature or fake doctor’s notes to pharmacies for her, his stomach would always twist up in knots even though he knew nothing he was doing was terrible. The sense of guilt was unavoidable. Usually he’d try to focus on a game to get that to go away. He spent a lot of time curled up with games when he couldn’t quite get his mind to be quiet enough to function. Outside, he made himself focus on the park instead, on the bright spring light shining through the trees, the bird mom diligently building her nest, the shoes someone had thrown over a powerline. _I never did get why people did that_ , he noted, _but I guess there’s worse stuff to do if you’re bored._ Once upon a time, he’d talked him mom through learning to focus on something outside in order to focus, usually the pattern of leaves in the trees or the flowers in the wallpaper’s design, something, anything to get her panic down to manageable levels.

This park was where he met Lina, under Victor’s supervision, to play with her. It was a surprisingly nice place, cozy and serene in equal measures. Someone had painted over the graffiti on the maintenance shed that had been there last time Eugene and Lina had come to play. Eugene grinned at the sight of a very large spray painted strawberry covering up the gang signs, surrounded by pastel hearts. That would probably make people madder than if the other gang had dissed them. Still, his smile couldn’t last. Lina was never late. A sense of dread lingered in the back of his head, a little whisper of _something is wrong_ that he couldn’t shake, no matter how hard he tried not to focus on it. He made his eyes go back to the bright red of the painted strawberry, the flare of blue on the bird in her nest, anything so he didn’t have to contemplate just what could go wrong.

When he heard footsteps behind him, he turned, then inhaled sharply. “Jesse?”

He was taller than in his picture in his file. He’d ditched the shaggy haired look of his younger years for something that was well-kept, sideswept and long up top and neat and short on the sides. In a dark green jacket and jeans, he looked like any other guy in the world, but Eugene knew better. He knew Billy had nightmares about him. He had stayed awake listening to Billy throw up until his stomach was empty over the mere memory of Jesse. And he knew Jesse was the reason Lina was bleeding so badly that she was willing to risk going to the doctor even when that meant maybe getting transferred to another group home.

His gray eyes were almost soft in the spring light, smile a little shy. “Hey. I know you’re probably mad at me, but I wanted to talk. Is that okay? Just for a minute. Lina’s in the car, and afterwards I’ll drive you both right to the hospital, hand to God.”

He needed to say no. He needed to back away. But Lina would want him to talk to Jesse. She wanted everyone to be friends, no more fighting and no more drama, no more sadness so deep and big it made her think about ending everything. Eugene was pretty sure she had depression. If she did, then he needed to keep her in a home she liked with people she liked or else it would get worse. _Just like my mom – when my dad walked out on us, that hurt her so bad. If I’d been a better kid maybe he wouldn’t have left. Maybe she’d be okay. If I get Lina away from Jesse, she might get worse, she might hurt herself and I wouldn’t be there to stop her, or she might try to run away to get back to her folks and get hurt on the way. I don’t wanna lose her. I don’t want to let anyone else down._

_I want her to be happy. I think that’s probably love. And superheroes help the people they love._

“Okay.”

 

* * *

 

The duck pond in Narberth’s park was home to a pigeon attempting to woo a duck.

 _That’s immensely relatable on a depressing level,_ Jesse noted, watching the smaller bird fluff itself up and try to get the bigger bird’s attention. _Shit, that’s like, half my childhood right there._ The thought was disquieting, but then again, most of Jesse’s thoughts were, when left to his own devices. He spent a lot of his life with his earbuds in trying to blast out his own thoughts before they turned into racing thoughts and internal screaming. Sleep was elusive unless he’d had an orgasm directly beforehand. And sometimes, even that wasn’t getting his brain to shut up well enough, despite the best efforts of his doctor. Sleeping pills weren’t an option given his employment was so dependent on his ability to be up at a certain time, so he’d long ago resigned himself to running on empty.

Running on three hours of sleep and half a pot of coffee, though, wasn’t doing his thoughts any favors, nor was it making it easier to play it cool. Eugene wasn’t the kind of kid who would pick up on what was off. He was naïve, practically new to the world in that way kids from outside the foster system entirely usually were. However long Eugene had been in the system, he wasn’t street smart yet. A smarter kid would’ve called the cops before ever showing up. A less trusting kid would have at least had the foresight to keep their cellphone in hand throughout this conversation, make it clear this was less negotiation and more confessional. Eugene was not the kind of kid who was designed to last out in the real world. His head was stuffed full of video game dreams and Golden Endings wherein everything turned out okay.

Jesse had always conceptualized himself as being like the kind of wolf-dog looking strays of Philadelphia, vicious and victorious. He wasn’t the tallest or strongest guy, but he could fend for himself. He could protect the people he had in his life from whatever threatened them. Other people weren’t aware of just how much he loved, how intensely he loved, how overwhelming his affection for Billy and later Lina truly was. Lina was his. She was part of his life on a fundamental level, as natural and seamless a part of him as his own name or voice was. Other people might have called it predatory. That failed to take into account that predators ripped other predators’ throats out.

He wanted a future with Lina. A road trip across Canada, first, a long process that would likely take all summer, and then she’d be home safe. He’d have to go off the grid afterwards, fake some IDs, dye his hair, probably. Jesse would remake himself into a person she could stand beside without the law getting involved. She would be happy and loved and supported back home, back with people who understood her. And in her gratitude, she would realize how much he loved her. They wouldn’t need anything else.

Perhaps, thousands of miles and all the continuous states between himself and his first love, he might be able to let go of Billy. Maybe then it wouldn’t hurt like Hell to sleep alone, missing the soft warm body that he’d gotten so used to cradling in his arms. Maybe once he could fill up that absence with someone who really loved him back this time, the dull ache of loneliness would go away.

“I didn’t mean to hurt her,” he said quietly to Eugene, who gave him a sort of confused look, unsure whether to believe him or not. Their feet crunched on last autumn’s old, withered leaves as they walked the path circling the pond. “I mean it. It’s a size difference thing, I didn’t – I would _never_ hurt her on purpose, Eugene. And I think now that I know that this could happen, it’s best if I don’t touch Lina that way until she’s way older. Like, at least fourteen.”

That appeasement seemed to actually work a little. Eugene visibly mulled it over, pursing his lips thoughtfully. “She still needs to go to the hospital.”

 “Yeah, I know. But that doesn’t mean she has to tell anyone who hurt her.”

The blonde could see the doubt on Eugene’s face, the same doubt that had been on his birth father’s face all those years ago. ( _He was so confused, why was his dad mad, his other dad didn’t mind what his mother did, but those were the wrong words and the man pulled away from Jesse’s apologetic hug, leaving him small and alone.)_ Back then, Jesse had thought people would understand if he reasoned things out with them. Hell, he’d thought that not all that long ago, tried to measure his words just right so Salem could see things clearly only to have it thrown back in his face. _(“Is that what you tell yourself?” Salem had asked, flatly, eyes so cold and unfeeling, unsympathetic in the face of Jesse’s ranting. He’d never been cold to anyone before in Jesse’s memory, and the blond hated it. He hated it, he didn’t deserve it, he wasn’t a monster and no one ever tried to understand-)_

“Lina says it happened once before,” the younger boy said, less an accusation and more a neutral statement. “Why didn’t you stop then?”

Jesse exhaled slowly, annoyed by himself in retrospect. “At the risk of sounding like a dumbass? I’ll admit it: her period was late so I just assumed it was that.”

Eugene’s full body cringe was totally warranted. No guy wanted to talk about periods, especially not their best friend’s periods. It was weird in a way neither of them knew how to navigate. It was also the truth. Lina and Jesse were not doctors. Trying to tell the difference between a period and post-sex blood was more complicated than it sounded, and it wasn’t anything their respective sex ed classes had covered, especially since Lina’s ‘sex ed’ class was really just ‘puberty exists and here’s how to use a pad’. They were still playing it by ear. Only afterwards, really only this morning, did it become impossible to deny that Jesse was the cause. Now that he knew that, he knew that there were some definite limits on what human bodies could take that no amount of having her chug soda was going to be able to fix. Somehow it hadn’t hurt in the moment either, only hurt afterwards. _I need a book,_ Jesse thought, immediately rejecting the idea. _The librarians here know where I work. Nope. Not doing that. Too risky._

“If you tell the police who did it,” Jesse said, measured, reasonable, making eye contact, “they’ll be putting me away for something I never meant to do, that I’m not going to do again, that was an accident. Do you really think that’s fair? I’m not such a jackass I’m going to do something dangerous on purpose. Do… do I seem like that kind of guy, to you?” His voice grew softer as he stopped by the bench near the pond, watching the pigeon fruitlessly trying to get the duck to love it. “I’m not. I love her. I love her so much, kid.”

The younger boy stopped beside him, watching Jesse watch the birds. “I dunno. I’ve heard some foster kids are really bad. One of them really messed up one of my foster brothers.”

“On purpose?” he asked, and could tell by the way Eugene looked away that he didn’t know.

“I guess I thought so. But I guess that’s not something we can know, either. Does it matter?”

Jesse nodded once, ceding the point. “Fair enough.”

For a few moments, they stood there in silence. The duck finally grew irritated with her pigeon suitor and jumped into the water, swimming away from the little island in the center the other ducks rested on. The pigeon tried to fly to her, but couldn’t land in the water or hover near enough to touch. His distressed cooing was loud in the soft sounds of the morning. Jesse ran a hand through his hair, despite having abandoned the longer-haired look at long last. His mother had adored it, adored his thick platinum blond bowl cut. _My doll, my precious toy,_ she’d always called him, running her hands through his hair again and again, sometimes taking a brush and drawing it through his hair until it fell in petal-soft waves. _My angel doll, such a pretty boy toy, such a gorgeous baby._

He missed her. He wanted to go back in time to when he could crawl into bed beside her, breathe in the scent of jasmine and vanilla, sweet as the cookies she’d make him after school.

Sometimes he clawed at his scalp until it bled, plagued by the phantom sensation of her hands, her long sharp nails, grabbing at him, and cried and cried until he didn’t know why he’d begun crying. Sometimes he missed her _as_ he did it.

One time, Billy picked the lock on the bathroom door and came right into the shower with him while he did it. He grabbed Jesse by the wrists, holding his hands away from his head, and held on until Jesse stopped hyperventilating. They stared at each other, wordless, unable to find the right things to say to begin to address whatever it was that had just happened. Jesse’s face hurt from crying, and Billy leaned up and kissed him, pressed soft kisses to his cheeks and his eyes and his forehead until Jesse’s hands stopped shaking. All the violent thoughts inside drained away, replaced with only physical feeling, the sensation of a body pressed against his, familiar yet wholly new. No one had ever held onto him like that without getting aroused before, and he waited for Billy to take his hands and guide them further south, but he didn’t. He didn’t, even when they slept side by side that night, rubbing at Jesse’s back as the blond tried to figure out why everything felt so _wrong_ and so _broken_. This was not how the world worked. This was how Billy worked, regardless. He gave and gave, and never asked for anything in return.

Lina had the same eyes as Billy, not in color but in compassion, big, soulful eyes full of love and understanding. Lina would hold him if he needed it. He knew that. He knew it the way he knew the sun would rise. Jesse needed her. She needed him, too, in order to get back home. That was unromantic, honest, in a way he didn’t expect Eugene to understand no matter how it was explained to him. People never understood. Jesse himself still didn’t understand what he’d had with his mother despite having over a decade to try to puzzle it out. Love was not something people were designed to quantify, qualify with labels, dissect and comprehend in its’ totality. It was a lived experience, so those not living it could never truly understand it.

“I really love her,” he admitted to Eugene, praying, hoping against hope that the kid would get it and they could walk away from this without having to resort to any drastic solutions. “I can’t imagine my life without her and I’m terrified somebody in the system would hurt her if I wasn’t there to intercept it. I don’t want her to get beat up, or end up mixed up in drugs, or God only knows what else. People will tell you that because Narberth is richer, we don’t have those problems. We do. And I think we can keep her a lot safer working together than if we turn on each other, kid – Eugene. Sorry, force of habit. I know you’re not some dumbass kid with no clue what’s going on. You care about her. We both do. So I’m begging you: don’t breathe a word about this.”

“…I know you love her. But I know someone you used to know, and I think you loved him, too. And you really, really hurt him a lot. He can barely think about you. So even though you love her,” Eugene said honestly, looking Jesse in the eye, “That doesn’t mean you should be with her or that you’ll be good for her.”

He felt it, then, the disconnect. He was furious, so angry and frustrated with the way no one got it, so tired of having to try again and again to make people see he was a good person, and the worst part was that Eugene almost understood. He almost understood that Jesse loved and adored Lina more than anything and would try to change. He almost understood how love could overcome anything. He almost got it. But in the end, he was just a selfish kid, a stupid little brat who wanted Lina all to himself, who wanted to be the only hero in her life’s story. In the end, he was yet another person who wanted to take away what little Jesse had. And he had the nerve, the sheer gall, to bring Billy into it, as if he could have any clue what Jesse and Billy had had in their time together. They had been golden. They were happy together.

No one understood anything and it was easier not to acknowledge what was about to happen was real. He disconnected from himself. He watched himself move without feeling it, took action without willing it, and it meant nothing because it hurt less not to feel a thing.

_I can do anything for the people I love. Anything._

And he did.

 

* * *

 

They said that when you died, or nearly died, your life would flash before your eyes.

Eugene’s life didn’t flash before his eyes entirely. He remembered his mother teaching him how to use a computer, thought of that last birthday they’d had together as a family before his father walked out, had a flickering image in his mind’s eye of the little old lady who ran the local Chinese restaurant that kindly gave him leftover food sometimes. He thought of Mary sitting down beside him to play games with him the first night he was in the Vasquez home. Darla tried to teach him to dance when she saw one of his favorite streamers played _Just Dance_. Pedro introduced him to the world of Pokemon fan remixes. Billy straight up fought a supervillain for him, for all of them. Lina listened to him talk about his mom and held his hand and told him she’d been through that, too, and it wasn’t his fault, and those words were like a hug he never stopped feeling.

At some point, the burning pain of the water had overcome him and he’d sort of fallen away from consciousness, abrupt and jarring. He awoke with a surge of pain, coughing up water and shaking with the force of that. The need to get it all out was overpowering, all-consuming. He choked. He tried to inhale giant gulps of air and throw up water at the same time. A cold sweat broke out over his skin. Heat and cold washed over him in confusing waves as the world tilted dangerously, little white spots floating in front of his eyes, his hands shaking too hard to get him to push into a sitting position. For a few moments he laid there on the muddy bank of the duck pond, helpless as a fish on land.

He tried to speak, to say the magic word. The magic would take the pain away, but throwing up had left his throat so raw he couldn’t speak, and he was so, so tired. Eugene wanted to sleep until the pain faded.

 _Lina needs me._ Eugene didn’t care how much trouble he got into with his parents for this whole thing or if they found out he was a superhero. He hadn’t cared about that when he made sure his mother was safe from the unmerciful mental health care system for all those years. He didn’t care when he risked jail time to find Billy’s mom. None of that mattered. He shut his eyes and swallowed three more giant lungfuls of air before he reached for his cellphone.

_Can you come get me? I got hurt and I can’t get my superpowers to work._

_I’m in Narberth - Victor and Rosa know the address._

_Please hurry._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jesse Soundtrack/Playlist:
> 
> Dog Teeth by Nicole Dollanganger (TW for CSA/rape; Nicole is a survivor who writes songs to cope)  
> Outrunning Karma by Alec Benjamin  
> Trash by Korn (TW for pedophilia and implied rape)  
> A Stranger by A Perfect Circle  
> Ugly Truth by Lauren Aquilina  
> Fake It by Seether  
> Spade by Marilyn Manson (also on the Billy playlist)  
> Funeral For The Whore by ∆XIUS LIИK  
> Black Dahlia by Hollywood Undead (also on the Lina and Billy playlists) (TW for implied murder, sexual abuse, mention of self-harm)  
> Hate Me by Blue October (TW references to alcoholism, suicidal ideation)


	40. in the fight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog. - Appalachian American proverb

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for referenced pedophilia (Jesse/Lina) and referenced dead parents (mentions of the other kid's backgrounds pre-foster care).
> 
> If I have my planning done right, which I am in no way sure of, we've got 3 to 5 chapters of main story left, followed by a lengthier epilogue. The odds of this being done by mid-January are pretty high. Buckle in, everyone.

Billy shut his eyes and focused on his breathing.

There were moments in his life where he had to make decisions, whether it was to chase a lead looking for his mom, steal something, start a fight or walk away. In those moments, he always found that all his previous thoughts and reasons why he shouldn’t do what he was about to do faded away. He hadn’t wanted to get attached to Freddy and had beaten up his bullies anyway. He didn’t want to throw down with a supervillain as terrifying as Sivana, then he turned around, walked toward him and said _Shazam_. Salem had once said Billy was incapable of depravity. That was a charitable way of saying he had zero impulse control.

This was different. He stood there, he thought things over, he came up with a few ideas, and then he chose the one that would rip apart the status quo anyway. Heroes needed to save their family. Heroes didn’t pick the easy options.

“Rosa, Victor,” he called, leaving Darla to chat happily with Mary and Shay, “We need to talk.”

Every now and again, all the panic left him and he did something he knew was important with a strange calm, a complete tranquility that came from knowing everything was going to get easier now. Granted, in therapy that moment of calm had preceded throwing up or freaking out, but for the moment he was in the eye of the storm, and he saw everything clearly. He put all the puzzle pieces together – Lina’s boyfriend was involved, he knew, he knew because he knew how foster kids guarded what was theirs and he knew what it was to be owned by someone. How things had gotten this out of control, he didn’t know. Why Eugene hadn’t told them he was going, he could guess and understand completely. What to do was sort of a nebulous series of end goals with no game plan on how to get there.

He’d done more with less in his life. Billy had turned in a foster father who was abusing a girl under his care to Social Services, the cops and CPS simultaneously in an effort to surround him with angry, vengeful adults. He had saved his mom’s life basically on accident. Billy wasn’t Batman; he didn’t plan in advance, he didn’t have gadgets, there was no Plan B. It didn’t matter. Doing something was better than doing nothing.

Rosa took one look at his somber expression and her smile dimmed. “Billy? What’s wrong?”

“I wanna start this off by saying I’m really sorry for not being a hundred percent honest,” he said, before he could think this over enough to come to his senses and stop. “But we have a situation with Eugene and if you step outside with me, I’m gonna explain everything so we can help him out.” She opened her mouth to ask him something, and he held up his hand. “I know this is weird, but just trust me on this for half a second. And go outside with me, ‘cause I don’t want Darla overhearing this. I’m trying not to suck as a brother.”

Her gaze softened, and he found himself pulled into a hug. “You’re not, sweetie. You’re a very good brother.”

“ _Mom_ ,” he groaned, squirming uncomfortably. “Don’t make it weird.”

She kissed atop his head and hugged tighter.

 

* * *

 

Rosa had always believed in miracles.

When she was eight, her grandmother died. She had never known her parents, only her loving grandmother who doted on her but whose health was constantly deteriorating. Without a place to go, she had suited up in her patchy, ill-fitting jacket, given a regretful look to her grandmother’s body, and gone out into the cold. There was no power in the worst parts of Appalachia. She had no phone. She was a child, cold and lost and absolutely overwhelmed, and in most cases this sort of story would end with her getting lost in the woods or freezing to death or someone horrible pulling up beside her on the road to hurt her. Many children met violent ends on back roads at night. Even at eight, she knew that, clutching her grandmother’s rosary so tightly the beads left imprints in her palm as she walked quickly down the dirt road with only the moon to guide her.

She had prayed for someone to show up and help her. And a man in a beat up, worn down pickup truck had pulled up alongside her an hour later, horrified by her thin, shaking form and tear-stained face. Nine times out of ten, a grown man talking to a child under those circumstances would have been terrifying, but his eyes were wide and concerned, and his first action was to take a blanket from the passenger seat and hand it to her.

“Jeezum Lord have mercy – where d’ you think you’re goin’ in twenty degrees, little lady?” he asked, in an accent so thick it was hard to understand but with a tone of voice she knew well from her grandmother, a parental, loving one, and she broke down sobbing. She stammered out the whole story inbetween sobs. He called the police for her on his phone, drove her home and let her stay in the nice, warm truck when she just couldn’t bring herself to go in and face what had happened. After an awkward pause, he rubbed her back and said quietly, “Hey, hey. It’s alright. Cryin’ helps ya heal. I ain’t gonna judge. Let it out, kid. S’ alright.”

It wasn’t, but it was. The pain was never going to totally go away, yet it honestly was lessened by a grown up telling her it was okay to cry, telling her he knew her grandma loved her. A stranger had dropped everything to help her. A stranger waited with her in the cold and worried about her and gave her some beef jerky and orange soda from his snack stash. Her grandmother had always told her people were good deep down, that people wanted to do good and help one another, they only needed the chance to do so. People were better than the news or gossip said they were. God’s love, her grandmother told her, was everywhere and in everyone. And in that moment, Rosa believed her completely.

Little miracles like that happened, time and time again. Each person in her life had one miraculous moment of kindness that saved them. Pedro’s first foster father had been a music therapist, and that had gotten him to engage with people at least a little bit, along with teaching him how to cope with his social anxiety and grief. The day he was given complete access to his foster father’s music library had hauled him back from the brink of a very dark place mentally. Freddy’s mother had refused to give up custody of him despite her obvious financial and mental inability to take care of him. His teachers hadn’t cared enough to send a social worker in to check on him, but another kid in the neighborhood had gotten worried and called it in. Rosa tried very hard not to think about what would have happened if he hadn’t. They still didn’t quite know how Eugene’s otherwise bulletproof web of lies had failed to allow his mother to lose custody of him, only that someone had noticed his tiny slipups and made the decision that a ten year old shouldn’t be trying to take care of himself and his mom. Mary’s father found all his power and money useless when Mary had the sheer blind luck to stumble across Batman, the least easily bribed human being alive. For Darla, the miraculous thing was either her survival or the EMTs who revived her at the scene. Or maybe the best thing there was that her mind blocked the entire thing out and had never shown any signs of letting her glimpse the violence of her whole family being murdered. Rosa wasn’t sure what to count, there.

For Billy, much like Mary, his miracle had been learning to fight for himself and walk away from people who had wanted him in the worst way possible. He had one or two good people here or there helping him stay a little safer or move a little closer towards the realization he deserved to be treated better. Mostly, though, he and Mary had to save themselves. They had to throw themselves out into the world and hope that they swam rather than sank. And at least Mary knew Batman was out there, in some abstract sense, and that he cared but he simply couldn’t see her again – Billy _thought_ he had Marilyn, but he didn’t, he never had, and she told him that to his face and sent him away. The woman he’d been choked for, beaten up for, stolen for, lived his whole life for and never given up on had never given him a chance and the fact that Billy didn’t hate her humbled Rosa as a person of faith. There was a level of forgiveness there which could barely be fathomed, let alone understood.

So with his hopes crushed, over half his life having been declared all for nothing and his purpose in life effectively lost, Billy had hit rock bottom. He stayed there for all of a minute emotionally before hauling himself back up to his feet. That was the kind of thing Rosa wouldn’t have believed if she hadn’t been there to witness it. He’d been thrown away, picked himself up and kept going. He let himself be friends with his siblings. Billy learned to be a brother. He hesitantly, carefully figured out, day by day, how to be a boyfriend that didn’t suck, at least not any more than the average teenager. His grades improved. Billy bit down his pride and his completely justified fear of being rejected and went to therapy. There were grown adults Rosa knew who never managed that level of self-evaluation and emotional awareness.

He pushed down his panic to help Eugene, harnessing all the horrible experiences he’d had to stand beside someone the way no one had stood beside him. In her eyes, Billy was heroic. Rosa knew he wouldn’t agree if she said it, but she believed he was a truly good person.

So when he hauled Victor and Rosa outside, she was keeping an open mind and an open heart. She believed in her son.

She read Eugene’s texts on Billy’s cellphone and frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“Yeah, I figured.” He took a deep breath, looking right on the verge of panic. “This is going to suck. But, like, I care about you guys and I trust you. A lot. So… _SHAZAM!”_

The lightning that struck was so close the earth underneath her feet shook with it, shifted enough to send her stepping back into Victor’s arms. Out of sheer force of habit, they locked around her, and she rested against him as her mind raced to try to process what was happening. One second, Billy was in front of her. The next, a red-clad superhero with a cape was, looking just as sheepish and uncomfortable. He held up his hands awkwardly like a kid caught in a lie. There were tiny similarities to Billy in the man in front of her – that nervous pursing of the lips, the way his hands flexed in a subtle display of anxiousness, his inhale through his mouth and exhale through his nose.

“Uh, so,” he began, voice deeper but definitely still the cadence and rhythm of Billy, “I totally meant to keep this a secret forever. I’m sorry. It’s not that I don’t trust you guys or care about you or whatever, I just… I didn’t want supervillains to come after you ‘cause you’re, you know. My parents.” He cringed, embarrassed by his own (very truthful) word choice, but pressed on. “Which – I mean – I know I have parents, and like, I don’t hate them, either, but – I’m getting off track. Sorry.”

“Breathe,” Rosa advised. Whether she was advising him to do that or reminding herself, she didn’t know. “Take it from the beginning.”

“I would, but we don’t have time. Speedrun: I’m a superhero, then everybody else got superpowers. Mary, Eugene, Pedro, Freddy, Darla. You know those superheroes you saw on TV? Those were us. That’s how Eugene got to Narberth around your guys’ backs again and again. He flew. And-”

Her heart stopped as her gaze dropped to the phone. “He went there today?”

He nodded, eyes as somber and serious as only a child forced to grow up too fast could be. “Yeah. I didn’t know. I didn’t know how to tell you guys, either,” he added, glancing back and forth between Rosa and Victor, who had gone very still and appeared permanently stunned, “since I didn’t want to freak you out. But… whenever I try keeping secrets, people just end up hurt. So I’m just gonna tell you everything once we get Eugene back home safe. Anything you wanna know. About me, about the superpowers thing, about my fucked up relationship with Jesse, about my way less fucked up relationship with Freddy, literally anything. No more bullshit or sneaking out or ducking questions. I promise.”

“…you don’t have to bribe us to get us to help you out, here,” Victor observed quietly, and the confused-surprised look that crossed the superhero’s face was tragically, purely _Billy_. “You already tell us the truth until it makes you sick. You don’t owe us anything more than trying your best. Which you have been, Buddy. You’re doing that right now, and that’s enough.”

Billy swiped at his eyes, swearing. “ _Shit_ , I didn’t even know I _could_ cry when suped up.”

“Language,” his foster mother reminded him firmly, stepping forward and pulling his startled, muscular form into a hug. “This is… this is a lot. But you’re right. We need to go get Eugene. We’re a family; we look out for each other.” She brushed a strand of stray hair out of his face, smiling gently at him, this man with a boy’s eyes who was still half-awaiting a rejection. “You’re a good brother, Billy, and a good son. Thank you for telling us.”

He might’ve sworn again, but the sound was swallowed up by the crushing group hug Victor drew them both into.

 

* * *

 

Something was wrong, and Lina wasn’t sure what.

She paced back and forth in her room despite the stabbing pain inside her – the motion actually seemed to take the edge off of it, somehow, which made no sense but helped her think. It was a clear day, gorgeous blue skies with a sun more befitting summer than spring, a rare warm day after a few weeks of lingering chill. She had the windows open to let the clear air in, hoping it would clear her head. The heat was borderline unpleasant. So why did she feel so cold? Why did it feel like the ground was going to give out underneath her, like that moment in a horror movie before everything went too wrong for a happy ending to come out of it? Her chest hurt, anxious pangs that made her rub at the space under her neck, which turned to clawing at the skin in short order.

Eugene should have texted her. He should have. He always told her when he was on his way, even if he was only a block away. Something was wrong. Jesse hadn’t come back yet and that was wrong, too, because as much as she joked about his car being garbage, it wasn’t a long drive to the park and back. He should have been back already, with Eugene, ready to pick her up. She stared out the window, thinking, stomach churning. A shudder coursed through her, ran up her bare legs into the rest of her. Somehow a dress made her feel vulnerable in a way she didn’t want to deal with right now.

She’d been wearing a dress when she met Jesse. Somehow she’d grown to like them less and less since then. That didn’t make any sense. She loved him. He was going to get her back to her parents, like a prince from a fairytale. Once upon a time, she’d believed that completely. Except Eugene was the real hero. He never asked her to do anything she didn’t want to. He never hurt her. He wanted her to be okay. She could text him when she was sad and he’d always reply, always distract her with video games and explaining things to her. He got her into Pokemon, introduced her to puzzle games, showed her all the fun things she’d been missing out on, and all he wanted in return was somebody to talk to.

He never told her what to wear like Jesse did. The most he ever did was tell her once that leather could keep stab wounds from being fatal and leggings could absorb shock and keep her from skinning her knees. That was Eugene in a nutshell: internet-gained information, concern and dorky smiles. God, where _was_ he?

The tightness of leggings around her aching midsection was worth it. It felt more like she was prepared, though she wasn’t sure what she was preparing for, and in that spirit she went to her dresser to get her pepper spray, just in case she needed it. Eugene had helped her make it with the help of some tutorials online. Keeping it on her made her feel less nervous about the world when he and Jesse weren’t around. Her breath caught in her throat when she couldn’t find it underneath her socks. Annoyed by her own clutter, she grabbed some of them and chucked them onto the floor, digging through the drawer. Nothing. She grabbed her underwear and threw that on the floor, too. It wasn’t there.

Lina knew damn well she had put it in the top drawer. She always did. That didn’t stop her from rooting through the other two, a dull ache growing in her chest as anxiety clawed at her senses. Her pepper spray was gone. All the money she’d stored away in a pocket she’d sewn on the inside of her baggiest shirt was gone, too. The change from the powdered donuts she got the other day at the gas station wasn’t in her jeans. She shut her eyes as a wave of wild and sudden dizziness rolled over her. This didn’t make sense. _Keep it together. Jesse has a reason for this, I just need to ask him. I just need to find him and talk to him. And if he won’t answer his phone, I need to go to him, I guess. It’s fine. It’s fine. He’ll explain everything._

Fortunately, due to her longstanding habit of sleeping in her oversized yellow hoodie, her X-Acto knife was still in there. It wouldn’t be enough to fight someone off if they tried to mug her, probably, but most people didn’t do muggings in Narberth in the daytime anyway. And above and beyond that, it was good to know that she had something that Jesse couldn’t or hadn’t yet taken from her. _That’s crazy. He gives me things all the time. I shouldn’t be being so hard on him._ But even as she told herself that, the memory of last night washed over her, of pain too intense to process, of how her whole body had seemed to go limp, her consciousness drifting like she wasn’t truly there, truly alive.

Eugene would _never_ have hurt her like that. And now the person who _had_ was with him, and he’d gone silent.

She skipped over walking to the park and just went right to Jesse’s apartment instead, breathing in fresh air that burned through her like acid and smoke, the sun screamingly bright, sky so empty and vast it hovered above her as if it would swallow her whole if only it could. The world wasn’t right. Something was wrong. And when something had been wrong for her, Eugene had always been there to goof off with until things felt okay again.

She owed it to him to make things okay for him, too, even if that meant breaking up with Jesse or turning him into the police, no matter how much those ideas were scary to her.

_He’d do anything for me. I wanna do something for him. Not because I owe him or he thinks I owe him, but because I feel better when he’s okay and he feels better when I am._

_I love him. I love him more than I'm afraid of Jesse or the cops or anybody else.  
_

_Hang on, Eugene. I'm coming._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lina Playlist:
> 
> Cement by Nicole Dollanganger  
> Angels by Within Temptation  
> Black Dahlia by Hollywood Undead (TW for implied murder, sexual abuse, mention of self-harm)  
> Breathe On My Own by Mark Eteson ft. Audrey Gallagher  
> This Place Was A Shelter by Ólafur Arnalds
> 
> And while we're here, might as well throw this out here too, since IDK if I'm keeping the draft where Mary figures into the ending more prominently (probably not; refocusing this on Billy is better suited to the endgame/epilogue I have planned).
> 
> Mary Playlist:
> 
> The Dark I Know Well from Spring Awakening (TW for incest)  
> Young God by Halsey  
> So Cold by Ben Cocks  
> The Trick Is To Keep Breathing by Garbage  
> Breath Of Life by Florence And The Machine  
> She Keeps Me Warm by Mary Lambert


	41. it gets louder and louder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Broken lines, across my mirror  
> Show my face, all red and bruised  
> And though I screamed and I screamed, well, no one came running  
> No I wasn't saved, I wasn't safe from you
> 
> Don't let the water drag you down  
> Don't let the water drag your down
> 
> Don't let me drown, don't let me drown in the waves, oh, oh,  
> I could be found, I could be what you had saved
> 
> \- Under The Water by The Pretty Reckless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for mention of pedophilia (Jesse/Lina, Jesse/Billy), underage sex (same), attempted murder (Jesse vs. Eugene), and past abuse (Jesse vs. Billy). Look, you should know what you're getting into at this point and know by now I won't hold it against you if you walk away.

Lina took off her hoodie, tying it around her waist.

The walk to Jesse’s place wasn’t too terrible. Narberth was a far cry from the tiny town she’d grown up in back in Alaska, but Jesse lived maybe a twenty minute walk from the group home, and she could manage that. Back when her dad would get too deeply delusional to talk, wrapped up in his hallucinations, she would walk through the mountains on animal paths for hours at a time. (Eugene used to play games for hours, when his mom succumbed to her own delusions; in a way, that was a walk outside mentally.) This wasn’t so bad.

Or rather, it wouldn’t have been, if her abdomen didn’t feel like it had shrapnel in it. She was still cold, but couldn’t take the heat walking alone seemed to generate, body already coated in a thin layer of sweat. Swearing, she spat on the street, trying to clear her mouth of that pre-vomit feeling that kept rolling over her. Still, she was here, and it was too late to turn back now. The second her eyes caught sight of the beaten down Toyota Blazer her boyfriend drove, the haphazard way it was parked set off alarms in her head. He was always the one stressing to her to act cool so nobody had a reason to interrogate them. He never messed up his parking. Lina tried not to think about why he would have to rush around like this. Eugene wasn’t in the car. That was all that mattered. She needed to find out where he was – maybe inside, with Jesse? Eugene absolutely would want to look over Jesse’s stuff to make sure they had everything, he was that kind of cautious, he… he had _better_ be in there.

Jesse’s apartment was one of those nice older buildings that had been turned into multiple apartments, a relic of a bygone era when people lived in stupidly big and obnoxiously fancy houses. It loomed over her. She felt awfully small, slipping inside the unlocked door. That was a red flag in and of itself. Jesse’s door was never unlocked. He was too paranoid for that. Were his neighbors home? She briefly contemplated knocking on their doors, asking for the phone, as if she could really call the cops on someone who she didn’t know for sure had done anything wrong. _Well, he did do_ something _wrong, but I’m not sure they’d come over here for that and I’d waste time talking. Shit._

She should have called out to him from the hall, but that he’d left the hallway door ajar was already putting her on edge. She didn’t trust herself not to be startled by her own voice at this point. Despite the fact that Jesse had never raised an unkind hand to her, she found herself reaching into her pocket and clutching her X-Acto knife tightly. Stupid. The paranoia was making her stupid and crazy. Jesse would never hurt anyone.

 _Where’s Eugene?_ A little part of her shot back in reply. _If that’s true, then why isn’t Eugene with him?_

She could hear Jesse swearing up a storm, the thud of frantic, fast footsteps reaching her before she got to his door. _(“There aren’t really swearwords like in English in Inupiaq,” she’d explained to Eugene, who unlike Jesse actually wanted to know about her home in Alaska, the details, the food and the bits of native language she still recalled. “We don’t have words like asshole, jackass, and all of that. You either call someone nosey, or arrogant, or ieuqun.”_

_“What’s an ieuqun?” Eugene asked, tripping over the complicated vowel sounds but interested nonetheless._

_Lina hummed, trying to think of how to explain it. “It’s someone who’s not really a person, I guess? They’re hollow inside, there’s a hole where their heart is supposed to be, so they can’t ever really be a good person. Sometimes in stories someone carved out their heart. Sometimes they traded it. In one story, a guy carved his out so he wouldn’t have to feel bad anymore.”)_

God, she wanted to be with Eugene talking about silly old myths and eating powdered donuts from the gas station right now. It was all she wanted. Somehow, she couldn’t bring herself to want Jesse to scoop her up and tell her it would all be alright, the way he used to. If he did that this time, she wouldn’t believe him. She preemptively didn’t believe whatever he was going to say. It hurt. Lina wanted things to be okay, wanted a boyfriend and a friend and a happy ending and all those other things that were about as real or possible as someone carving out their own heart and burying it in the snow. The next time she saw him, she was going to buy him powdered donuts and that awful tropical punch Gatorade he liked, and steal her money back from Jesse and take Eugene to the GameStop, and, and…

And she just really, really hoped there would _be_ a next time.

 

* * *

 

Billy touched down next to Eugene and felt his heart seize up.

Fortunately, Xiong was thoroughly beyond the point in her life where she locked up at the sight of something terrible, and the second he set her down she had her cellphone out. Apparently she had a direct line to dispatch that she could use, which was aided by the fact that she’d called ahead and told them to send an ambulance to the park’s vicinity. There was also a responding officer dispatched, but as he didn’t have aerial view like Billy did, she’d opted to ask the red superhero for a flight over in order to save time. In an emergency, every second counted, and by the time Billy blinked the shock out of his system, she had gotten ahold of dispatch and was directing them to their location while also taking Eugene’s vitals.

Eugene looked young in a way that didn’t make sense, given there was only really a four-ish year difference between them. Four years wasn’t much, but he felt like he was seeing a little kid when he looked at him, someone who hadn’t ever really had a chance to live. The thought made him cold. Angry rings of bruises around Eugene’s neck, deep indents of fingers and scratches that had broken the skin turned everything visible from his cheeks down red, purple and splotchy. He was pale, almost ashen, yet his lips were smeared with red.

“He bit through his lip,” Xiong said when she caught Billy staring. “It’s okay, Red, he’s got a pulse and he’s breathing. All we can do right now is get him upright to ease his breathing – his lungs sound like a damn helicopter, he needs the boost.”

He nearly tripped over himself to get next to him, easing Eugene’s unconscious body upwards into a sitting position. Xiong immediately shimmied into position behind the young boy, bracing her knees on either side of him and holding him to her with one arm, furiously texting with dispatch with the other. Billy tried hard not to think about how cold Eugene felt. The warmth of Xiong’s body would hopefully help in lieu of an actual source of heat, even if the sight of Eugene’s slowly breathing, soaking wet form curled up against her made it clear to him just how vulnerable he was. He was a superhero, a gamer who could beat grown men, he had a really good vocabulary, and he was a pretty mature kid overall, when not curled up with his PC.

But he was a kid, no matter how Billy looked at it. He was just a kid and this shouldn’t have happened.

_(He flinched as Salem sat down beside him, brushing his hair out of his eyes. His grip on the trash can was ironclad, knuckles white with the raw energy of the panic attack he was still feeling the aftereffects of. Billy didn’t understand. He’d wanted to tell Salem about what happened between him and Jesse. He wanted someone to know. Not having anyone in the world know the truth felt suffocating, put weight on him that he couldn’t keep holding up, yet once he’d told him the panic and shame had slammed into him like the wrath of an angry god._

_“Shh,” Salem murmured, rubbing his back as Billy struggled to speak. “It’s okay. I’m not – I’m not mad or grossed out or, or whatever it is you think I am, alright? You’re okay._ We’re _okay. I’m still your friend. And you don’t have to say anything else, okay Baby Bat?”_

_He shut his eyes as another wave of nausea rolled over him. The steadying presence of Salem’s touch helped. Somehow it hurt, too, to know that he was at such a low point in front of someone he cared about, to know he looked like such a wreck. How was he still like this? He was fourteen, that was too old to cry._

_“I don’t…” the older boy started, taking a deep breath and picking his words meticulously, “I don’t know what to say to get this through to you, but you were just a kid. You didn’t deserve that. None of that should’ve happened, B.B.”_

_“You don’t understand,” he murmured back, miserably, too tired to undertake the monumental task of considering that Salem might be right. “I was old enough to know better.”_

_Salem shook his head, eyes unbearably soft and kind, almost pitying. “There’s no such thing. One day, you’ll get it.”)_

He got it. He didn’t want to get it, would have rather gone back to being too self-centered to feel acutely the horror of this moment, but yeah, he got it now.

“You gonna be okay, Red?” Xiong asked him. Thaiv, he corrected himself. She wasn’t an on-duty officer right now, dressed in bulky loose jeans that had clearly seen a lot of work over the years and a grey t-shirt. She looked younger, too, or maybe more accurately she looked more human, more like a friend he was talking to than an authority figure. “He’s going to make it. Might be a rough hospital stay, but I’ve got ‘em. _We_ got ‘em.”

Billy nodded. “Yeah, yeah I know, I – I know I’ve gotta go find who did this, too, but I don’t know how to find them and I don’t wanna leave him like this.”

Her expression softened, rich umber eyes richer with sympathy. “I’ve got the medical background to keep him alright until the ambulance gets here and the training to keep him safe. I won’t let anything happen to him, Red. I’ve got this.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, aware he sounded like a broken record. “You do. I, um, I think I have an idea of where to check for a lead, even if the guy who did this isn’t there anymore. So I’m just… I’m gonna go. Fly over and check on that.” He hesitated, still, after he stood. “Tell him I’m sorry? And that I meant to get here sooner?” She nodded. “Call me, if anything’s wrong?”

“Red. _Red_ ,” Thaiv said firmly, forcing him to make eye contact with her via sheer somberness. “I’ve got this. This is what I do. Now, go do what you do. Okay?”

 _What I do._ He pictured Sivana, the people he’d saved on patrol with Freddy, the broken and bleeding form of his brother, the weird one-off supervillain they’d stopped, and took one final deep breath before nodding and taking to the air, off like a shot after one last lingering look. _This is what I do. I save people. I can do this._

_I have to._

 

* * *

 

The group home hadn’t picked up when Rosa and Victor called.

Billy transformed back into his plain, boring-ass normal form before he got into eyeshot of the place, not trusting that to mean that no one would be here. Plenty of foster kids would ignore a ringing phone, and someone who thought he’d pulled off a successful murder definitely wouldn’t have lingered around to pick it up. And if the person who _tried to kill his brother_ (and holy shit that thought was terrifying, those words echoed around in his skull, refusing to leave, _this came so close to being the end_ ) was here, then he wanted to show up as a loser nobody foster kid, look unimportant. Kids weren’t threatening. Nobody called the cops on a kid going in and out of a foster home, and neighbors never bothered to figure out which kids were and weren’t living there. He was practically invisible.

 _Just like before_ , he thought, and physically stomped the ground on the way up the sidewalk to force himself to focus up on the present. His thoughts raced on regardless, even as he took in the house that had, once upon a time, probably been something really freaking cool. Like a lot of older houses, it wasn’t perfectly maintained, and had been turned into a home for lots of kids instead of remaining a giant semi-mansion for one family. Once upon a time, the idea of walking into a place potentially full hostile kids who he needed a favor from would’ve been unthinkable, especially for a foster sibling. Now, he’d break the door down if he had to. Taking the stairs up to the porch two at a time, he knocked on the door loud enough to wake the dead, deeply irritated by the lack of a doorbell in the year twenty-freaking-nineteen.

A flicker of movement caught his eye, and he bolted for the ground floor window almost – but not quite – out of reach of the porch’s railing. “Hey! I need to talk to you! It’s important!”

There was silence, but he could see the tiniest amount through the holes in the lace curtains, and saw, or hoped he saw, someone pausing. Panic clawed at his brain and he shoved it aside. This may have been his only lead but he’d done more with less in the past. He tried to pick his words wisely. How many times in his life had he stood on this precipice, where one misstep could spoil everything, without ever really botching it beyond belief? He could do this. He _could_ do this. He had to. Eugene needed him to.

“My brother’s hurt. Somebody tried to kill him, and I need to know where they are. This is my only lead. If you talk to me, I’ll give you all my money, never mention you to the cops and leave right away, I swear to God.” A corner of the curtain got pulled back. He tried hard not to think about how much what he said sounded like a lie to a scared kid skipping school. “Please, please believe me. Please, I need to know, I… whatever you need, I’ll get you, okay? We can make a deal.”

The thirteen seconds between the curtain falling back into place and the door opening left him perched there at an edge, heart in his throat, praying in that desperate way Salem had taught him that involved few words and a lot of concentrated hope. Then finally, _finally_ , the door unlatched, not enough to let him in but enough to give him an inch of visibility. Beyond the chains on the door there was a young boy with cool, rich sepia skin, somewhere inbetween Darla and Eugene’s ages – Billy couldn’t tell with the giant pajamas and the narrow view – who looked genuinely scared of both this being a lie and it being the truth at the same time.

“Lina left.” He worried one of his midnight-black dreadlocks with his hand. He wore them long, pulled back into a thick ponytail at the back of his neck. It was clear from the slight oiliness of the hair, the rings under his eyes and the lived-in look of the pajamas that he was either still sick or just getting over something. “I don’t think she knew I was here, but she left maybe half an hour ago. Is she your friend?”

“Kinda. She’s my brother’s best friend. His name’s Eugene,” he rushed to explain, worried the kid might slam the door in his face if he didn’t, “Korean, glasses, a little bit shorter than you?”

The younger boy nodded. “I know him. Lina hangs out with him a lot. I didn’t see him today, but…”

Billy could have screamed in frustration. He kept his voice low and more-or-less restrained, albeit frantic in pace. “That’s okay. I just need to know where she is – maybe she’ll know who did this.” When he saw the kid hesitate again, he added, making unflinching eye contact, “Lina might be in danger, too. Whoever hurt him could hurt her! They were supposed to hang out today and now I can’t find her, and someone tried to strangle my freakin’ brother – work with me, here, please!” He flinched at himself, cringing at his own loudness. “Sorry. Sorry, I just…” Helplessly, he fumbled with his wallet, willing to bribe his way to victory.

“I know where she is.” The kid frowned, pushing Billy’s money away. “Stop that. And here,” he held out an all-too-familiar looking Nintendo 3DS, “Give this back to Eugene. Tell him DJ’s sorry, ‘cause I am. Um, please don’t tell anyone I told you, but… I think Lina’s over at – I don’t know the address? You go down the street across the road until you come to the gray brick house, then you take a left, keep going until you come to an ugly tan apartment building.”

He could have wept with joy if his knees weren’t visibly shaking with nervous energy. “Which apartment exactly? Do you know? Please,” he repeated, a thoroughly broken record, taking the 3DS belatedly. “It’s important.”

“I dunno, ‘m sorry,” DJ said, earnestly apologetic about that, almost shame-faced. “I’m dyslexic, I can’t remember numbers real well. ‘s why it takes me forever to remember addresses, too. But I know she goes over there with Jesse a lot, so you should try there.”

The name didn’t process. Not for a second. _Jesse’s here – but there’s other Jesse’s, he’s not the only guy with the name – but – he wouldn’t go for Lina… yes, he would._ Grim acceptance settled over him, cold as death itself, cold as the winter air Jesse had choked out of his lungs that one night he’d threatened to kill Billy. That hadn’t been an idle threat. He’d convinced himself it was, convinced himself Jesse would never really hurt him, and then therapy had come along and smacked some clarity into him. He would have. He _would_ have the capability to kill someone. He’d attempted it with Wyatt in retribution for Wyatt outing Billy to the school, then never, ever shown remorse for it, and in that moment Billy knew it was the same Jesse who did this, who did Lina, to put it crudely, because none of it was surprising. It was disgusting, yes, but not surprising, not even hard to imagine, not really.

“…I gotta go,” he whispered, pale and shaken, and then turned around and _ran_ , so hard his legs hurt, so long he all but collapsed into an alley a block away, barely able to breathe enough to transform into Shazam.

He transformed back into himself when he got to the building, tucking the 3DS into his jeans pocket. He didn’t expect it to make Jesse not attack him if he realized why Billy was there, because Jesse had never had the good sense not to use force on people he said he cared about. What he was counting on was for the appearance of Billy at all in his life again to freak him out just enough to give him time to get Lina out of there before this insane situation ended up having a body count. That this plan made sense didn’t make it any less intimidating. He’d rather have fought Sivana again, honestly.

His knees shook so badly as he walked into the tan apartment building that he nearly tripped twice, sweat breaking out across his brow immediately, struggling to haul his breathing back under control.

_(“We’re gonna be in so much trouble,” Billy laughed, letting himself be tugged along, his hand in Jesse’s, Jesse’s coat on him, smelling like cigarette smoke and suede. “One day they’re gonna transfer me where you can’t find me, you know.”_

_He laughed, a rarity for him, voice light and clear like he was so much purer and kinder than he actually was. “Yeah, right! No such thing, Bill. I can find you anywhere. Love’s a fucking awesome motivator. Imma hunt you down like a private eye, forever!”_

_Billy nearly tripped over his own feet. Love. He’d said love. Nobody had said that to him in a long, long time. And Jesse had thrown it out there with so much authority in his voice, with the certainty that people used to quote laws or Bible verses, like it was a cold, hard fact. Winter was cold, traffic didn’t exist at three-thirty in the morning, and Billy Batson had somebody who loved him._ )

He did. He had so, so many people who loved him now.

And he was going to save them all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas.
> 
> I swear the epilogue will be more Freebat focused and so will an additional chapter/chapters, but this is not Freddy's story at the moment.
> 
> That said, Freddy Playlist:
> 
> Unconditionally by Katy Perry  
> Love You Anyway by Ji Nilsson & Marlene  
> Love Show by Skye  
> Soldier by Fleurie  
> Freak by Molly Sanden  
> In The Name Of Love by Bebe Rexha  
> We Go Down by Krewella  
> Best I Can by Art of Dying


	42. refusal to repent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She whispers softly in his ear  
> "And I'm taking it all"  
> Is he the only one she wants to hear?  
> As she refuses to repent  
> She'll be restless, breathless  
> Searching for what she missed
> 
> \- The Transparent by The Paper Melody

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for sexual coercion, referenced underage sex, referenced attempted murder, psychological abuse, and just generally terrible relationship dynamics all centered around Jesse because he's a trainwreck of a human being.

_(“Alright,” Salem sighed, folding his thin arms over his chest and leaning back against the wall. “What’s your price, Dobrescu?”_

_He frowned, both at the impersonal use of his surname and the way Salem said it, like he’d expected from the get-go to have to bribe Jesse out of contact with Billy. He had so little faith in him, just a complete lack of ability to picture any scenario in which Jesse could do anything unselfish, and it grated. Salem had always debated him on topics – the goodness of foster parents, the existence of God/god/a higher power, the costs and benefits of stealing – but he’d never implied anything about Jesse being a bad person before. He’d always looked for the good in everyone. Part of why Billy had a crush on him was that nothing got Salem to be negative, and as much as Jesse wanted to scream at the thought of Billy’s eyes wandering, he could see why that was an attractive quality._

_Seeing the last vestige of hope the ever-hopeful Arab boy had go out like a dying candle made Jesse feel things he couldn’t name. They stared at each other for a long, uncomfortable moment before Jesse found his voice._

_“You really fucking hate me, don’t you?” Jesse didn’t know why that idea bothered him so much._

_“No,” Salem said immediately, and the immediate nature of that response was genuinely heartening. He ran a hand through his hair tiredly. “I just want to protect Billy from you. You’re what he has nightmares about. He throws up when he thinks of what you did to him. You don’t see it, but you scare him. For the love of God, he hides in my room to get away from you. Do you have any idea how profoundly messed up that is?”_

_Something unpleasant twisted inside him, a sort of encroaching dread he couldn’t push aside. “I’ve been working on my anger thing. You know that. I got him stuff to apologize, and I didn’t – for fuck’s sake, Salem, I didn’t just wake up one day and get it on with him. We eased into it, he picked what we did and that’s a lot more say in things than I ever had-”_

_He snapped his mouth shut, swallowing. He hadn’t meant to say that. Nobody understood, nobody ever managed to see that he could love his mom and be okay with what they did and also wish they hadn’t done those exact things so early on. Jesse took a deep breath and avoided so much as glancing in Salem’s direction. This was the worst person to have had that slip up in front of. He didn’t want to think about how much ammo he’d just handed to him, how much easier it would be for the thinner boy to argue that Jesse was garbage now. It was going to be worsened, too, by Salem being religious; didn’t they have all kinds of rules about sex and not having it? Shit._

_“…I’m sorry,” he said instead, voice devoid of judgment. He reached out as if to put a hand on Jesse’s shoulder, then stopped and let his hand drop. They didn’t hate each other, but they would never have enough of a truce to comfort one another. “You didn’t – whatever happened, you didn’t deserve that.”_

_“You don’t even know what happened.”_

_“Doesn’t matter. You didn’t deserve it, no matter what.” Salem shrugged like it was that simple, and Jesse found himself unable to look away, studying him for some hint of a deception. “Jess, if I don’t like it when this happens to other kids, why would it be any different for you?”_

_Jesse didn’t hesitate to enlighten him. “You think I’m a monster. Any other guy would be ripping into me right now and it’d help your case, you know, to fuck with my head and make me too messed up to want to stay. You could call me a pedophile or whatever, all that shit. I mean, you think I have it coming, right?”_

_“Nobody has_ that _coming,” and God, his voice was so sincere, his eyes were full of concern Jesse didn’t want or know how to deal with and he wanted to go back to Salem hating him. That, he could understand. He didn’t know what to do with this. “I would never throw this back at you. It’s like… you know how you apologized, when you made that one comment about my mother? That’s like this.”_

 _Jesse chafed at the comparison. He wasn’t like Salem. Salem was a control freak, every outfit picked out with precision, every word carefully selected, tone of voice always steady and low and never reactionary, each meal or lack thereof contemplated and every calorie written down in that little notebook he carried in his pocket. Jesse gave no such damns about control. He’d never been in control, hadn’t been since he was a little kid, and he’d come out on top anyway. He taught himself more useful things than how to be respectful like Salem, he learned to steal, lie, spot security, seduce foster parents, lure them in with just the right cocktail of flirting and too-long touches until they gave him what he wanted. He ran the show. He ran the_ world _, really. Jesse had been through a lot and come out of it a stronger, tougher, unbreakable person._

_But he might’ve broken, if Salem had decided to press that button and take a less merciful approach to this topic. Hell, he was breaking anyway. He wasn’t going to be able to summon up a lot of intimidation to throw at Salem for the rest of this conversation if the guy kept looking at him like that, with so much sadness in his eyes. It was too much. His hands curled into fists as he stalked forward. The Arab boy tensed, but stayed put, unwilling to walk away from this negotiation until Billy’s safety was secured, and beyond that… beyond that, he just simply wasn’t afraid of Jesse, not in the way other people were. Jesse could see it in his honey-amber eyes._

_He hauled Salem in by the scarf and kissed him._

_Salem was soft, warm, smelled like cloves and patchouli, tasted like honey lip balm and innocent inexperience. He made a noise of protest against Jesse’s mouth, turning away, but didn’t bolt or jerk away when Jesse’s arms wrapped around him, pulling him in closer. He was so thin, fragile, tiny in a way that no amount of baggy black clothing could truly hide, and Jesse wondered how this smartass Arab guy hadn’t been beaten up in the often violent, sometimes racist foster care system they inhabited. Maybe he had. He wasn’t sure, nor was he going to ask and make this even more awkward. Instead he paused to drink in Salem’s wide eyes and quickened breathing. He didn’t hate him. Even now, he didn’t hate him, because Salem just didn’t know how to hate anyone and Jesse loved it, loved finally having someone to be near that he could tell his shit to without worrying. Telling Billy wasn’t an option. Billy saw him as cool, badass, put together. Salem saw him as flawed, predatory, but not evil, and that was good enough._

_“’m not – Jess, we’re not like this,” Salem reminded him quietly. “This isn’t us. We’re not friends. And we’re both spoken for, technically. You need to stop.”_

_Jesse tangled a hand in Salem’s shaggy hair, running a thumb over his cheek. “This is what I want. If you want me to leave, this is what I need you to give me.”_

_The look of fear that flashed over the other boy’s face made the blond feel an acute pang of self-loathing. He really did think of Jesse as a predator, thought of being with him as something to be endured, and a flare of anger went through Jesse at the thought. “Dobrescu-”_

_“No. That’s not how this is going to work,” he stated, not giving Salem a chance to talk. “You’re gonna call me by my name and I’m gonna use yours, and you’re going to hold me and talk to me however the fuck it is you think people are supposed to talk in bed, you sappy self-righteous freak. You’re gonna treat me gentle. If I say no, you’re going to stop and you’re not going to ask where I learned to do anything and you’re going to_ love _me… I want you to… I need you to just love me, for a while.”_

_Fuck. Why was his throat closing up? He trailed off, eyes shiny with tears that he swore were just from the cold. Jesse himself couldn’t parse why he wanted this, why he wanted soft touches and the too-careful motions and words that were Salem’s trademark, but he did. He wanted, desperately, to be treated like he was delicate and needed care, and nobody else was going to give it to him – except Billy, who he just couldn’t bring himself to ask. Jesse wanted something purely loving. He wanted it badly enough it was enough to tip the scales and get him to walk away from Billy, who he really did care about in some strange, unorthodox way_

_And even in the midst of holding all the power in the situation, he felt like he had to threaten Salem into getting him to respect that ‘no’ meant ‘no’ and ‘stop’ meant ‘stop’._

_Someone hadn’t merely hurt Jesse, they’d hurt him so badly for so long he didn’t know what was normal anymore or what love looked like. And Salem knew he was monstrous, cruel, moody, but he still deserved better than that. He deserved better than what was done to him. No one should’ve hurt him like this. That much, Salem would always believe, because he had too much empathy, too much sympathy for the devil, and yes, he knew that was exactly what he was dealing with. This was not the kind of thing a good person would ask him to agree to. There wasn’t going to be some happy ending here where they slept together and the blond suddenly realized the error of his ways or learned how to love._

_But Jesse’s gray eyes were so, so sad and scared, little boy eyes, tired eyes, and Salem nodded before he could help it, gently taking and squeezing Jesse’s hand. He didn’t love him. Honestly, sometimes he really hated him. At the same time, though, he loved the person Jesse had the potential to be, if he walked away from Billy, got some therapy and got with someone his own age for once. He could get better. He might be able to turn this all around and end up being, if not normal, then at least someone who wasn’t an active danger to himself and others. He could end up being an okay guy – he was smart, funny, good with kids, determined, and creative. Salem saw potential there for recovery, if Jesse ever got pushed far enough away from Billy to realize he needed that. And damn it all, it was stupid and foolish, but Salem couldn’t help but feel the world owed even somebody like Jesse one sexual encounter that wasn’t a power play, that was just gentle and kind and sweet. Everybody deserved that._

_Billy would be devastated if he ever knew. It would be too much, to have his old boyfriend force his new one to do… whatever it was that they ended up doing. (He felt cold at the thought, and would have been sick if he’d had anything to eat that day.) Salem wouldn’t be surprised if this very deal to get Jesse to leave him ended up making Billy leave Salem in turn, later on down the road. There was no excusing the filthy, unloving, disgusting sham of a thing he was about to do. The whole thing was fucked. But he wanted Billy to stop being so damn afraid, wanted the nightmares and panic attacks to stop, and this was all he had left to try to make this happen with. Salem was out of bargaining chips. It was this or nothing, and he wouldn’t accept nothing. Billy deserved better than that. He deserved to be able to go through life without Jesse’s inevitable return looming over his head, deserved to live his own life, and somehow this was the only path to that Salem had managed to find._

_The Arab boy took a deep breath before cautiously pressing his mouth to Jesse’s, ignoring the spike of anxiety the touch sent through him, the constant fear in the back of his mind that Jesse would turn violent on him. He tried very hard not to think about how much this felt like prostitution. He couldn’t even begin to think about what this meant for him in the eyes of Allah and he was sure already that the guilt would make it nearly impossible to eat, and in spite of all these things he made himself kiss the blond anyway._

_It was the price Jesse had picked, and he could pay it, for Billy’s sake.)_

 

* * *

 

One thing that was really great about Eugene was that he never, ever made fun of how Inupiaq sounded.

He understood what it was like to be losing language from disuse. He’d only gotten to speak Korean with his mom in limited bits, then not at all in the foster care system. Lina had gotten to use Inupiaq with her father and grandparents, then ended up without anyone to speak to once she was in the foster care system just as abruptly and without warning as him. They had the same regrets about losing the opportunity, about not learning more of the words when they had the chance, about being detached from something they’d always taken for granted. In Lina’s case, the loss extended to her own name. She went by a nickname not out of a desire to fit in but because no one cared enough to learn how to say Alianait properly. Other kids giggled and botched it and made fun of it, and she learned not to mention it. She didn’t want to deal with people’s constant snickering.

Eugene didn’t snicker at her. He wasn’t good at saying it, but he tried. He taught her basic colors, greetings and phrases in Korean and she taught him little bits of Inupiaq in return. She’d always wanted a friend to do that with. Jesse had always dismissed it as something he couldn’t do. How he knew that without trying, she didn’t know. Eugene matched her dorky interests and enthusiasm and ran with it, loving and adoring every moment they had to talk about all the things they couldn’t talk to anyone else about.

“Paran-saek,” he said once as they colored – in private, because ten and eleven was too old to color according to a lot of other kids – pointing to the blue sky he’d colored.

“Sixagik,” she replied, instantly delighted by way he slowly repeated it. She tried to repeat his words, too, cringing at how bad she was. “Oof. I must sound stupid.”

He shook his head. “No. I don’t think anyone’s stupid. People just need practice at stuff. That’s why I try to be nice when people are new players in games. They’re doing what they can.” He pointed to the yellow of the sun he’d drawn. “Noran-saek.”

“Quqsuqtaaq.” Lina smiled at him as he carefully repeated it, managing the pronunciation really well. He tried for her. He listened to her, he tried to do things right for her, and he was just… the best. She wanted to hug him and kiss him and hang out with him. “You know, my name’s a word, too. Alianait means wonderful or something that makes somebody happy.”

“That’s really cool,” he gushed. Eugene was always positive, and, secretly, a bit of a language nerd. Maybe it was a function of playing a lot of foreign-made games. “So why do people call you Lina? That’s not that close to the way your name sounds.”

She fiddled with her crayon, not looking up. “Jesse chose it. He named me.”

Eugene cringed. “That’s kinda… weird. What about what you want? What do _you_ want to be called?”

“Alia.” She peeked up at him through the curtain of her hair, nervously. “Is that okay?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?”

_Because Jesse doesn’t like it._

“…no reason.”

 

* * *

 

“Where’s Eugene, Jesse?”

He jumped, in spite of himself. The stealth with which Lina moved had caught him off guard, coupled with his nerves as he stood there half-dressed. He needed to ditch his dirty clothes, throw them away immediately in case it ended up being incriminating evidence, so she caught him there in an undershirt and some old sweatpants, looking less intimidating than ever. She stood there with her hair put in a sloppy ponytail, dress replaced with practical clothing, expression stony and determined. Somehow, she didn’t look like his soft girl right now, the one he needed to protect and keep safe from the world outside.

“He’s at the park,” he lied, because too long of a pause screamed ‘guilty’ just as much as a too-fast response did. Lina’s eyes were trained on his face to an unnerving degree. “He doesn’t trust me enough to get into a car with me, which I guess is pretty fair all things considered.”

She was unconvinced. “Where’s my money?”

“Lina-”

“Where’s my money, my pepper spray, the bone comb I kept with me from Alaska? Where’s Eugene? Why wouldn’t he text me when he always does? Why is your car parked like you’re in a rush? Why are you changing clothes? Why are your old clothes soaking wet? Why’s there mud on your cheek?” She recited these less as questions and more as accusations, one after one, fired off with growing anxious energy. Her voice shook slightly. “What the _fuck_ have you done?”

She wasn’t coming to him. She was staying in the doorway, like once he told her where Eugene was, she was going to bolt for him. As if the kid she’d known for all of a month and a half mattered more than her actual boyfriend did – as if she cared about him more. A wave of jealousy rolled over him, potent and hateful, and it must have shown on his face because she tensed up, still not fully visible, separated by a doorway. She’d always been cuddly, moreso than anyone he’d ever known. Now she was entirely detached from him, focused only on the boy she’d started replacing him with. She was replacing him, and for what? For a guy who couldn’t get her home, who had nothing to offer her other than somebody to hang out with? Anger spiraled down into a dangerous place in his head, and he had to take a deep breath to haul in the immediate impulse to yell at her.

“I’m keeping us both out of jail and off the radar. You can’t go home if you’ve got a record and they shove you further away from your family, and you can’t finance it without me, Lina. I’m trying to keep you safe.” Why didn’t she understand that? Why was she looking at him like that, like he was letting her down with every word?

“Where is he,” she asked again, intensely, voice getting lower and colder. “Where is he, Jesse?”

Something inside him snapped. _This ungrateful little – Billy never would’ve talked to me like this – after everything I’ve done for her –_ “He’s dead.”

The light went out of her eyes. “…you’re lying.”

“Look, I didn’t mean to tell you like this, but he was going to ruin our lives. I tried bargaining with him, I tried explaining, I really did, I didn’t want to do it, okay? But he didn’t leave me with a choice.”

She stared at him, glossy-eyed, then dropped her gaze to the floor, trying to process everything. She swallowed, opened her mouth to speak, failed to get sounds out, and closed her mouth again. Lina looked every inch the hopeless little girl again, small and lost. He didn’t take any joy in having hurt her. It was unavoidable, but it was still awful. Even he knew that. Guiltily, he held out his arms for a hug, hoping he could comfort her through this terrible moment. For a long moment she didn’t move. Tears welled up in her eyes without a sound, slipping down her face without her noticing. _I’m sorry, kid. I had to do it. Nobody else is going to save us if we don’t save ourselves._

( _His hand found Billy’s and gripped it in an iron vice. “Nobody gives a damn about us. We’re invisible, Billy. We’re nothing. You think anyone’s going to stand up for you if I don’t? You think the rest of these jackasses won’t turn on you when their friends decide you aren’t cool? Somebody’s gotta keep you safe."_

_Billy bit his lip, frowning, and said nothing._

_“You could jump into this river right now and nobody would even notice. I would, but you ever pause and realize how it’s taking longer and longer between runaway sessions for them to get you back? Kids have an expiration date in the foster care circuit, Bill,” he explained, patiently, eyes catching the light of cigarette embers and glowing in the close proximity. “Nobody’ll want you in a year, maybe two, tops. Your only chance is to learn to look out for yourself – and if you can’t, I’ll look out for you, for your own sake.”_

_He didn’t know why that didn’t feel remotely comforting. “My mom gives a crap about me. She’s out there, Jay.”_

_“Is she.” There was no question in that, only a flat statement of doubt. “’Cause from where I’m sitting, the only person I see out here with you is me.”_ )

Lina stepped towards him, hesitated, then seemed to make some decision, staring into his eyes, a hardness coming into her own. Perhaps she’d accepted that this was inevitable. This wasn’t something either of them had wanted, but it was done and he couldn’t take it back. Lina was smart enough to know that good, right, legal and moral were all separate things. In spite of everything, she smiled at him, a weak, wobbly smile that made her look as young and sad as she had been the day he met her.

“I really… I never thought you could hurt anyone, Jesse.” She came closer, within arm’s reach. “I guess you never really know someone, even if you love them.”

“Yeah.” He tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, smiling lovingly at her. “I didn’t think I could do it, either.”

Her eyes were unfeeling, blank. “A lot of people can do it, if you push them far enough.”

And then she shoved her X-Acto knife into his throat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I really just write 3.8k of words devoid of our main characters and main couple? Yes I did. But it's the last time we're getting anyone's perspectives in this fic who's an OC, so I feel like I can be forgiven for it.


	43. survive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As I move my feet towards your body  
> I can hear this beat; it fills my head up  
> And gets louder and louder  
> It fills my head up and gets louder and louder
> 
> I run to the river and dive straight in  
> I pray that the water will drown out the din  
> But as the water fills my mouth  
> It couldn't drown the echoes out  
> But as the water fills my mouth  
> It couldn't drown the echoes out
> 
> I swallow the sound and it swallows me whole  
> 'Til there's nothing left inside my soul  
> As empty as that beating drum  
> But the sound has just begun
> 
> \- Drumming Song by Florence & The Machine, cover by Megan Davies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for mentions of abuse, attempted murder, assault... guys I'm not even sure how to do chapter-by-chapter warnings at this point, it's a shitshow.
> 
> Our options were an update a day for a few days or a delay between giant chapters. IDK if I made the right call, here.

_(“Jesse? What do you wanna be when you grow up?”_

_He blinked, caught off guard by the question, looking up from where he was sketching in his notebook at the kitchen table. “I… don’t know. I guess it’d be cool to be an engineer or something, build stuff that goes really fast, but I’d have to really work on my grades for that. Or I could maybe be a teacher, I guess. I’ve had a lot of shitty teachers and it’d be cool to be able to be a non-shitty one. But then I’d have to get up at like, six in the morning every day, so…” The blond cringed and shrugged, giving up on the idea based solely on the hours. “Why’d you ask?”_

_Billy fiddled with his pencil, ignoring his math homework with long lasting determination. He shrugged unconvincingly. Pretending he was okay was something he was good at only about half the time. Sometimes Billy was a great liar. Sometimes, he was like any other ten year old: obvious, sad and trying too hard. He wasn’t surprised when he saw Jesse set his pencil down and gave him a worried look._

_“I guess I’ve been thinking… my mom’s probably going to ask me stuff like that when I get back to her, and I don’t know the answer.” Billy glanced up at him, frowning. “I don’t know what, like, my favorite color is and what I wanna be and what my favorite animal is and all that stuff. She’s gonna think I’m a weirdo, Jay.”_

_The older boy got up, making his way to where Billy sat on the counter by the windows, soaking in the sunshine. He tugged Billy into a hug, which the smaller boy accepted but did not return. He was afraid if he did, he might get all emotional. He was ten, he needed to act it and stop being a crybaby. What would his mom say if when they got reunited, he was a total wreck? That would be super embarrassing and awkward. Billy didn’t care what most people thought, but he wanted his mom to think he was cool and to know he’d been okay all these years. And he wasn’t sure he was. It was a strange thought, one he didn’t share very often, yet some part of him felt like something was off. He wasn’t a badass like Jesse or mellow and artsy like Elio had been or super knowledgeable about sports like Wyatt. He was just some kid._

_Could his mom love him if he was just some kid, with nothing special about him at all?_

_“She’s gonna be so glad to see you again she won’t even care about that stuff, Bill,” Jesse told him as Billy rested his head against his boyfriend’s shoulder. “You’re a great guy. You never gave up on her, you fight bullies, you’ve always been there for me, and you stay out of any really bad trouble. So what if you don’t have it all figured out yet? I don’t, and I’m four years older than you. There’s still time.”_

_“But, like… I don’t have_ anything _figured out, Jesse. I’m totally lost. She’s going to think I’m a loser.” And God, that was scary, the idea of her being disappointed in who he was and how he’d turned out in the years since she’d last seen him. “I just want her to be proud of me.”_

_“Kid, you survived the foster care system without becoming a jackass, a bully or a criminal. That’s something to be proud of. She’s going to love you.”_

_“You think so?” he asked, pulling back enough to look Jesse in the eye, daring to hope._ _  
_

_“I know so, Bill. Trust me.”_

_And he did.)_

 

* * *

 

Billy heard them before he saw them.

There was screaming, rapid-fire and incoherent, raging shouting that dripped with so much venom and raw hurt that the words were almost insignificant. He’d sort of expected that. He hadn’t expected it to be coming from Lina, hadn’t known most kids her age were even capable of that kind of volume. Apparently the neighbors well and truly weren’t in, as the lack of cars nearby indicated, because otherwise they would’ve called the cops or poked their heads out or done _something_. His mouth went dry at the sight of the doors left ajar to the building and the way the very air seemed turbulent, shaking with erratic energy. Something was horribly, horribly wrong.

In all the years he’d known Jesse, which was over half his life, he’d never known Jesse not to shout back when yelled at. He didn’t have that kind of self control. If someone threw a punch, he punched back. If they yelled, he yelled back. He was never good at hauling in that impulse to defend himself, that deep-seated need to escalate the situation until it became life or death. Jesse worked grudges and acted on impulse.

So why wasn’t he shouting back?

He forced himself to take a second to text his family his location in their group chat, just because this whole thing felt like the end of an era. Everything felt wrong. Danger was palpable, that you’re-going-to-die heightened sense of anticipation and dread that he’d felt facing down Sivana. His knees might’ve shaken as he forced himself to go into the apartment building. One door was wide open, and Lina was still going, still furiously yelling, slicing into the air with vicious, angry words.

“-the one good thing in my life! You couldn’t let me have anything, because you always had to have me! I’m not yours! I’m not your property! I’m not a thing you can play with I’m not a doll I’m not I’m not I’m not _do you fucking hear me-_ ”

Billy felt as unreal in that moment as he did when he had stood outside his mom’s door, ready to knock. Some tiny part of him whispered _there are no happy endings_ and back then he’d ignored it because he was living for a happy ending. Now, he let himself accept the words as they washed over his mind and rolled off it like water. He decided to walk in before he could talk himself out of doing so, before he could lose his nerve, and so he stepped immediately and firmly into a scene he couldn’t have ever imagined.

The apartment was a disaster. A lamp had been knocked over, there were clothes strewn on the floor from an overturned duffle bag, there was a deep gouge in the couch, and there was glass everywhere, mixed in with blood, a half-broken one in Lina’s hand. The smell of beer permeated the air, brown beer bottle glass sticking into the skin of a wrist visible under the hunkered form of Lina, who was bare-armed and smeared in blood. For a second he couldn’t figure out which injuries belonged to who, not helped by the bruises on her arms, but it all came together when he spotted an X-Acto blade’s handle sticking out of a hand.

Jesse’s hand.

It was Jesse she was straddling, beating with what remained of a glass bottle, again again again, rhythmic, unceasing. Billy would recognize that familiar burn scar on Jesse’s ankle anywhere, the halo of platinum blond now stained with red, the long fingers that were so good for shoplifting, and yet it didn’t register. It simply couldn’t. That wasn’t how this was supposed to end. This wasn’t the way the world worked. Jesse took and hurt and lied and stole and never got caught. He’d spent his whole life being invincible. He protected Billy, fought off bullies for him, lied for him, covered for him, gave him money, gave him advice, taught him things, tutored him with his homework – he was all-knowing and invincible. Nobody ever hurt him. Nothing could touch him. He was above everyone and everything and now he was gasping for air like a fish on land.

Billy hesitated. He wasn’t proud of it, but he did. He honestly paused and thought about walking away for a second. Jesse had it coming. He _really did_ , in a way very few other people could ever have, and nobody would have to know. Nobody would ever be able to find out. If they did, would anyone blame him?

Yes.

He would. He wouldn’t be able to live with this. Jesse might’ve been able to walk away from what he did to Wyatt without guilt, but Billy was haunted by his own inaction to this day and he hadn’t even been the one to hurt him. No matter how much somebody had it coming, they never really did, not to Billy.

With a complete lack of grace or planning, he threw himself at Lina and hauled her bodily off of Jesse. Her tearstained face flashed before him for a second before she threw a wild punch at his head, missing by maybe an inch as he ducked, scrambling to grab ahold of her wrists. (Jesse had taught him that it was the best way to stop an attacker, short of kicking them inbetween the legs.) She thrashed in his grip, kicked, screaming a whirlwind combination of hate and hurt at him all the while, lashing out with her head to smack into his jaw, uncontrollable, volatile.

“You don’t know what he did!” she snarled, wild-eyed, betrayed. “You don’t know what he took from me!”

“I do!” he shot back, stepping back and yanking on her wrists hard enough to force her to her knees. “Of course I do! He’s been fucking me since I was ten!”

She wasn’t surprised or deterred. “Then why are you doing this? Why are you saving him?!”

“I’m saving _you_!” Billy screamed back at a volume he’d never used before in his life. “You could go to prison!” _Just like my dad._ “You need to get away from him and get a life that doesn’t suck and he’s just ruining you by dying on you, just like he ruins everything else!”

“He _deserves_ it! He deserves it and I’m so tired of trying to pretend things are going to get better,” she threw herself backward, hauling Billy with her in a flurry of motion and landing them both on the floor, “when I know they aren’t! Nothing ever gets better! But if I’m fucked, then he’s going to be, too! If I’m going down I’m taking him with me!”

Her hands found his throat and a dozen other moments like this flashed through his mind’s eye. He remembered hands around his throat he’d placed there willingly to find his mom, ones he’d endured because he thought Jesse loved him, and Jesus Christ they were too young to be this messed up. Kids on TV never had these problems. They lived happy lives away from violence and pain and sex and all the things that had brought the three of them here to this place with all this insanity. This wasn’t the way life was supposed to work. This wasn’t how life was supposed to be. And six months ago he would have said there was no changing it, that she was right and nothing ever got better and they might as well dive into the darkness if they were going to be damned already.

Six months ago was a lifetime ago. He knew better now. Billy knew now that there was no rock bottom that people couldn’t be pulled back from. There was no such thing as too damaged to be loved. Parents could turn you away and boyfriends could hurt you and your mind itself could turn on you and you could still be okay. You could always get better.

Lina wasn’t going down because there was no down too far to reach for someone who cared enough. With her hands wrapped around his throat, he cared about her, in what he hoped was the last repetition of that motif in his life’s story.

He slammed his knee up between her legs and watched her eyes go unfocused from the pain.

“I’m really sorry,” he told her, surprised to find his own voice was shaking wildly, throat closing up with emotion. “I’m so sorry, I never wanted to hurt anybody there, and you can hate me if you want. That’s okay. I used to hate me, too.”

Somehow she’d gotten blood smeared on his clothes when they’d tousled on the floor, staining his wrist as he fumbled for his cellphone. Jesse was beyond Billy’s meager First Aid knowledge. He was still and silent now. His silver eyes were closed, swollen shut from punches and bruising, chest, neck and face home to so many cuts that if Billy hadn’t known it was his apartment, he’d never have been able to identify who he was. Spilled beer and blood mingled into the most ghastly smell to ever assault Billy’s senses, coppery and sharp and unyielding. Lina began to cry inbetween helplessly gasping for air, shaking violently. He had to focus on the lights in the ceiling to keep from throwing up. Trying to put his thoughts together enough to remember the number for 911 was almost impossible.

Something being almost impossible had never stopped him before. He hit 911 and felt that same sense of not really being here that used to come over him when he was having sex with Jesse, coupled with acute awareness of the smell and the sounds around him.

He had survived it all, but he had not been spared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Billy Playlist:
> 
> Angels by Within Temptation  
> Antidote by Faith Marie  
> In The Name Of Love by Bebe Rexha  
> Orestes by A Perfect Circle  
> You Should Know Where I'm Coming From by Banks  
> Sleeping Hummingbird – Космос by ∆XIUS LIИK  
> Stranger by Endless Blue  
> Get Thru This by Art of Dying  
> I'll Be Good by Jaymes Young  
> Line Of Sight by ODESZA  
> Black Dahlia by Hollywood Undead (TW for implied murder)  
> Hurts Like Hell by Fleurie  
> Spade by Marilyn Manson  
> Brave by Sara Bareilles  
> Dark Star by Jaymes Young  
> Back From The Dead by Skylar Grey  
> Barren by Nicole Dollanganger (TW for CSA/pedophilia and feeling unlovable as a result of being abused; Nicole's a survivor who writes to cope)  
> This Is Letting Go by Rise Against  
> Shatter Me by Lindsay Sterling


	44. alright

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Go on alone, because I won't follow  
> But this isn't giving up no this is letting go  
> Out with the old dreams I've borrowed  
> The path I carve from here on out will be my own  
> A path to take me home
> 
> \- This Is Letting Go by Rise Against

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for references to pedophilia + grooming + underage sex (Jesse/Billy), attempted murder (Jesse against Eugene), and actual murder (Lina against Jesse).

Freddy drummed his fingers against his knee, hating that they had to drive over to Narberth rather than fly.

Superpowers weren’t something to be used whenever he got impatient and he knew Victor and Rosa were trying to make sure their secret identities were safe. They were doing everything they could to make this okay. Mary and Shay were watching over Darla and Pedro, officially they’d waited until the police called to get moving, they were doing everything above board and making sure to keep suspicion down. That didn’t mean it was any easier for them. Victor’s hands gripped the wheel so tightly it looked painful. Rosa hadn’t said a word the entire time they’d been driving other than to answer her cellphone and talk to the police.

Billy wasn’t hurt. He was only at the hospital because the EMTs had rounded all three of the people in the apartment up for a full medical examination. DNA swabs had been taken, fingerprints logged, fingernails checked for bits of skin and residual evidence. Pictures had to be shot of each bruise, cut and blood smear. The police had to figure out what happened and that meant analyzing literally everything. The only salient details Freddy took from this was that Billy was okay, but he was also surrounded by people who thought he did it.

Freddy didn’t know if his boyfriend had done it. He doubted it. Somehow he couldn’t imagine Billy attempting to kill anyone – Billy hadn’t killed Sivana, who had endangered hundreds of lives and threatened Billy’s family directly. He’d rescued his mom, who arguably didn’t deserve it. The only times he’d ever snapped and gotten violent was to stop a bully. That was it, though – he stopped them, he didn’t go any further than he had to. Billy had superpowers. If he wanted to stop Jesse, he could do it without killing him. There was no reason for him to attempt to murder the guy. And if he had, they had _superpowers_. They could make it look like an accident or at the very least transform and fly away.

He might’ve thought about it before, laying awake listening to Billy’s nightmares. There were a lot of ways somebody with superpowers could get away with murder and he was scared of how much the idea appealed to him. He’d never felt so much hate for someone. Jesse was monstrous, beyond salvation, beyond understanding, and Freddy wanted him to die. He didn’t want him to pull through his injuries. At this point, even prison was too good for him. The guy would find a way to hurt someone from inside there, or when he got out. A trial would involve Billy and Lina testifying, lawyers, months of deliberation and media coverage and absolute mental and psychological torture. There wouldn’t be anything good to come out of it.

More than that, though, he wanted Jesse to die so he wouldn’t have to kill him. He wanted the closure of knowing the man who had haunted Billy like a ghost was gone, and he wanted the moral high ground of not having done it himself, much as the idea was oddly satisfying.

 _All of this is sick. I’m sick. I shouldn’t be thinking like this._ He rested his head against the window, watching the world whip by. _I’m a superhero. I’m supposed to be the good guy. But I want Billy to be happy. I want all of us to be okay, Lina should get therapy, Eugene needs to know the guy who attacked him is gone, we all just need this to be over. Everyone needs to be able to go to sleep at night knowing they’re safe. They deserve to sleep through the night without nightmares because God fucking damnit, they all deserve happy endings._

_I just don’t know if I do._

“This is all my fault,” he said out loud, earning a concerned look from Rosa. Freddy felt any lingering faith he had in his own superhero status drain away as it dawned on him. “I had Eugene look up Jesse, so I could… I don’t know, I thought it’d help me keep Billy safe. Instead it made him go over there, and that’s how this happened. That’s how he got hurt, that’s how Lina met him and ended up hurting him and _he almost died_ and I don’t know how we’re going to afford all these medical builds and-”

“Slow down,” his mother told him, voice kinder than Freddy knew how to deal with. “Nobody’s blaming you, Freddy.”

“I am.” He rubbed at his eyes hard enough to see stars. “Billy never told me Jesse’s name. He never wanted any of us to know who his ex was, but I went around his back. What kind of shitty boyfriend does that?”

“One who loves his boyfriend very much, and wants to make sure he’s safe,” Rosa replied, and winced when Freddy buried his face in his hands. “I… I won’t say you did the right thing. You didn’t. But you had very good reasons, and you didn’t make Eugene go over to Narberth. And however he got there, it was Jesse who chose to hurt him, according to Officer Xiong. It’s his fault for choosing to do that.”

In Rosa’s head, that made sense. Freddy could see that she had a point. No matter how anybody came to be in front of Jesse, that didn’t give him the right to hurt them. But he hated Billy’s mom for putting him in foster care and putting him in Jesse’s path, and in that same spirit he hated himself for giving Eugene the incentive to go to Narberth and end up in that same place, albeit by proxy. Besides, even if Jesse hadn’t entered the picture, Lina had still introduced Eugene to sex and how much was that going to mess him up? Everything was horribly broken because Freddy couldn’t respect Billy’s wish to not look into or talk about this guy.

He fell silent, staring out at the perfectly sunny, cheerful day outside the car and feeling wholly detached from it. Freddy knew then that no matter what happened or who told him it was okay, this moment would never leave him. The bright sun seared the weight of his mistake into him like a brand. This was his fault and he wasn’t going to pretend it wasn’t. He’d always gone through life with confidence, assuming that he was a good person, a hero, the kind of guy who made things better whenever he could. Now he knew that those good intentions didn’t mean anything if you made the wrong move, either in spite of them or because of them. ‘I meant well’ didn’t take back the damage. It wasn’t going to get things back to normal.

When they got to the hospital, Billy was knee-deep in an interview with the police, but they were allowed to see Eugene. Officer Xiong was there, in muddy and grass stained clothes, sitting beside Eugene with concerned, tired eyes. She and Eugene were talking quietly. Despite how loud and snarky she could be on the job, off it she was a friendly young woman with a crooked grin and an encouraging voice. He wondered how close she was to figuring out their superhero identities after this. She wasn’t stupid. Maybe that was simply one more way he’d messed all this up for Billy.

God, he was exhausted. Last night and Billy’s carefree kisses felt like another life that belonged to an entirely different person, somebody who wasn’t a complete fuck up. He wanted to have a breakdown and didn’t dare let himself in case he never stopped.

Victor rushed over to the doctor to begin talking diagnosis, damage assessment and if things would be okay. Rosa instantly appeared by Eugene’s side, pulling him into a careful hug. Freddy cautiously reached out to ruffle his hair, grinning when Eugene shot him an annoyed look. He pretended not to notice Xiong watching them intently. He couldn’t pretend to himself that he didn’t know this was after her shift. She was supposed to be relaxing with her wife right now, and he’d messed that up for her, too. He found his gaze lingering on Eugene’s neck instead. He thought he had seen bad bruising before, but Lina had hurt Eugene with the intent to take care of him afterwards and not endanger him. Jesse had tried to kill him and the bruising was already a deep, dark purple, matching a sizable bruise on his right temple. Freddy had to take a second to pull himself together. Rosa and Victor were having the same problem, even if they’d never say it – he could see it in their eyes.

“I brought your iPad,” Freddy told his brother, coaxing a smile out of Eugene. “I thought it’d help you feel better to have at least a little tech with you. How’re you doing, man?”

His voice was hoarse and barely above a whisper. “I’ve been better. My head hurts. Did you get my text?”

Rosa nodded, smoothing out his hair with her fingers, shooting Xiong a grateful smile. “We did, and Billy passed it along to a police officer he knew from an old foster home.” She met the other woman’s eyes, the two of them sharing a conversation without words. “Thank you, Officer Xiong.”

“You can call me Thaiv. We don’t need to be formal. I’m just glad I could help.” She stood, stifling a yawn. How long had she been up? Freddy was pretty sure she’d been up since midnight, given the kinds of shifts Philly PD worked. “I’ll get out of your hair. Rosa, you’ve got my number. Text me if you need anything. Right now, you need to have some privacy and I need some coffee before I go sling paperwork back and forth with Narberth’s boys in blue.”

Eugene smiled at as she left, clearly grateful to have had the company. Just the action of smiling made him wince, bruised jawline visibly aching. Freddy felt sick, thinking of his little brother stranded in a strange place with only a kind stranger to keep him company. _I did this. I’m the one who got us here. God, I’m such a dick._ Glancing at Rosa, though, he knew that this wasn’t the time or the place to bring that up. Right now, Eugene and Rosa needed him to keep it together, and once the police were done questioning Billy, he’d probably need that, too.

_I hope Billy’s doing better than the rest of us are right now._

 

* * *

 

Billy told them everything, and tried not to think about whether or not that might mess them up.

It sucked to know that this very thing could’ve prevented all this. If he’d told Officer Xiong the truth the day he first met her, if he’d stopped covering for Jesse, so many people could’ve been kept safe and there wouldn’t be a body count to this shitshow. And yeah, there was a chance that Jesse would pull through, theoretically, but Billy knew better than that. Jesse’s bottomless luck had run out. People didn’t bounce back from something as thorough and violent as what Lina had unleashed on him, couldn’t keep going in the face of that much blood loss, and it would’ve been crueler, really, if he’d pulled through.

He guessed he should have been relieved. Some part of him was, some part of him said it was good, that Jesse deserved it, but some part of him wished that things had never gotten to this point. Jesse’s biological father had wanted custody of him. If he’d gotten it, back when Jesse was seven, would any of this have happened? He could have gotten therapy, had a loving home, been saved before the rot set in and became too deeply rooted to remove. He could have been okay. If someone had stepped in, just called something in or taken him aside or something, could it have all been avoided?

If Billy had gone to one of their foster parents as a kid and told them, could they have gotten Jesse help, even that late into things?

Since Dr. Malloy was a city away, he threw all these questions at an increasingly sympathetic and also deeply uncomfortable police officer who was interviewing him. Officer Delva was a handsome guy, dark ochre red-brown skin and a strong jawline, hair cut in a mundane but flattering fade. He was young enough not to treat teenagers with the condescension some adults did, or maybe it was the fact that Billy was cooperating and eager to hand him all his truths on a silver platter that was making him more open to the kid. They’d been able to put together a timeline of events, Billy had handed over his phone without protest so they could confirm the time-stamp of the texts from Eugene, and for once in his life Billy didn’t so much as attempt to hide any of the facts.

“Jesse was fucking me, when I was a kid.” Billy held up a hand to stop the inevitable response of ‘you’re still a kid’ with, “I was ten when we started. Younger when he started feeling me up, grinding against me. When I realized Eugene was anywhere near him, I freaked. I know coming here alone wasn’t smart, I could’ve been hurt and I could’ve messed this up and let him get away. I know I should’ve gotten here earlier and stopped Lina. I could’ve done a lot of this a lot better.”

“Now you know what it’s like to be a cop,” Delva mused. “’s why I was glad to move here from Charleston; you can only see so many homicides and do this routine in your own head so many times before it starts wrecking you. But kid, you’re not a cop. You’re a civilian and for somebody without an ounce of training, you did great. The chief isn’t going to like you not telling us how you got here so fast, and we’re gonna have to ask follow up questions, but ain’t nobody here blaming you for any of this.”

“Except me.”

“Yeah, well. I can’t help you there. I’m telling you, though, for whatever it’s worth: if a guy fucked any kid I ever knew, let alone me, I’d’ve helped hide the body. You’re on a level I'm not at, Billy. You're doing what ya can. And so’s the girl, probably, underneath all the layers of trauma and anger and fuck-you-fuck-everything.” He grimaced, nursing his coffee, taking notes in a notebook that was rapidly filling up. “Let’s just hope a court sees it that way.”

“She wasn’t thinking clearly,” he objected immediately. “She’s _eleven_. There’s gotta be some provision in the law for abuse victims, right?”

Officer Delvas tilted his head in a sort of half-shrug. “Homicide’s a serious thing. This’ll be a long trial, I’m guessing. But if there’s any justice in the world, the jury’ll be merciful and shove her into a psychiatric facility. I’ve seen it happen before. It can help, believe it or not, no matter what you’ve seen on TV.”

“Dude, if I’d gotten her help before, we wouldn’t be sitting here. I could’ve reported her to her social worker for messing around with my brother, gotten her into some kind of program, gotten Jesse caught.”

“Kid.” He set his notebook down and leveled a gaze at Billy that was equal parts somber and pained. “Don’t do that to yourself. They don’t build empires on ‘could have’, just graves.”

It wasn’t funny, but between a lack of sleep and the smell of blood and alcohol still lingering in his senses, he snorted anyway. “I wish beer didn’t suck so I could start drinking. Which I realize as I’m saying it probably isn’t a great thing to say to a cop, but I'm into honesty these days.”

The young police officer shrugged, glancing towards the camera in the corner of the hospital room. “I think we’ll chalk that up to trauma, if anybody asks. They probably won’t. They’re probably going to – if this goes to trial, you might end up being a witness, to give substantiation to Lina’s claims of abuse as well as your own. You’re gonna get asked about him, uh.”

“Fucking me,” Billy prompted, and Delvas cringed, clearly not yet immunized to the grossness of this particular crime.

“Yeah, that. You’re going to have to field a lot of questions about that part of your life. Can you deal with that?” He didn’t say it as a challenge, simply as a gentle inquiry, aware of what a nightmare that kind of testimonial would be. "This kinda case'll drag on for months. It's not gonna be easy, but you're a minor. You don't have to testify unless you want to. Do you?"

Six months ago, even this conversation would’ve made him throw up, let alone what was going to come. Now, he found his answer was almost instant.

“Normally? No. To help Lina out? Absolutely.”

 

* * *

 

Freddy was surprised by the way Billy pulled him in for a kiss right there in the hospital.

Apparently at some point in the last few hours, Billy had gotten over being afraid of public displays of affection. As much as he overthought and deeply feared being predatory or looking possessive, especially in front of Victor and Rosa, he was too _tired_ to keep trying to act like he didn’t care. He did, and he kissed Freddy like he’d thought he wasn’t going to see him again, wrapping his arms around his shoulders afterwards in a tight hug. Rosa had brought a change of clothes for Billy so the police could take his bloodstained ones away as evidence, which Freddy was glad for, but the weight of the day’s events still lingered in his eyes. He looked older somehow, wiser in a way that spoke to having obtained some hard-won insights about revenge, justice and death.

“Good to see you,” Billy murmured, and Freddy managed to smile at him in spite of the nightmare that was this day. “Sorry I did this without running it by you first. I’m kinda shitty at this whole boyfriend thing.”

“In the words of Salem: you’re the one I chose.” He shrugged, too tired himself to be angry about being cut out of the loop. “We’ll talk about it later. Right now I’m just glad you’re okay. When the police called, I thought…”

He’d thought Billy was dead, or Eugene, or both, and for a moment he’d forgotten how to breathe, how to _exist_. Freddy thought he’d known fear. He hadn’t. Now he found himself running a hand down Billy’s arm, squeezing his hand, trying to remind himself that this was real and they were okay. They’d come so close to the kind of tragedy that couldn’t be repaired or recovered from. Things would take a long time as was to get back to some semblance of normal, and he wasn’t ever going to forgive himself. He wasn’t sure how they were supposed to go back to normal after this. Just the idea of the drive home and fielding Darla’s questions sounded like too much to fathom.

More than anything, he wanted to go directly to bed and hold onto Billy, press his head to his chest, listen to his heartbeat until the fact he was still alive could calm the storm inside his mind.

“Freddy?” Billy said, dragging him out of his darkening thoughts. “I – I should’ve said it earlier, but-”

Freddy held up a hand to stop him, not wanting Billy to push himself too hard too fast for the hundredth time since he’d met him. “You don’t have to say it-”

“I love you. I love you and I’m stupidly in love with you and we’re gonna be okay, because we can get through this together. Alright?”

Inexplicably, he found it impossible to argue when he looked into Billy’s eyes, and nodded, daring to let himself have a hope that was as unstable and uneasy as wandering in the dark might be. After all that they’d been through, somehow it made sense they’d switched roles and Billy was the light in his life again, just like when he’d first beaten up Freddy’s bullies. There was something amazing in that. He could lean on Billy, Billy could lean on him, and they could do both those things at once and it felt like coming home.

“Alright.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope none of my writing comes across as saying Jesse didn't deserve to be stopped. He did. At the same time, Billy loved him, and he's an idealist under all that snark. He wishes things never hit this point. I, the author, am not excusing the monster that was Jesse Dobrescu.


	45. The Dark (End)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I gaze up at the midnight sky  
> Can't find a single star  
> There are times when I miss the light  
> But I'm not afraid of the dark  
> I'm not afraid of the dark
> 
> \- The Dark, by Beth Crowley

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for mention of the past sexual abuse Jesse wrought on others. It's not graphic. We're done with that.

**TWO MONTHS LATER**

Alianait Aularaq wore a suit to court.

Some violent offenders went to court in their orange jumpsuits, but as a juvenile offender with no previous history of violence, she was given options. Dresses made her look like she was actively trying not to panic, so her lawyer had advised her to try something nice that didn’t invoke that reaction. She wasn’t sure what good looking respectable would do her given what she’d done. She didn’t protest. There were worse things, like the humiliating physical exams the doctors had to give her to catalogue the physical and sexual abuse. A suit offered long sleeves and protection by comparison.

Her lawyer didn’t call her Lina once she requested it. He couldn’t promise that the jury wouldn’t use it or that the judge wouldn’t say it, and she resigned herself to that. This was, after all, the trial of Lina, the scared little girl who Jesse Dobrescu dressed up like a doll, the Lina that was too afraid of angering him to run away and who did deliberately dangerous things like urban exploring and playing the Choking Game while secretly hoping she’d die, simply to get away from it all. At some point inbetween the moment he told her he’d killed Eugene and the moment the cops put her in handcuffs at the scene of the crime, that fragile danger-courting doll had died. The giggling, cheerful child she’d been in Alaska, tiny little Alia, that didn’t feel like her, either. Back then she’d thought the world was big and beautiful, had spent her days consumed by Disney movies and folklore, running around hiking looking for spirits in the snow. That part of her life seemed like it belonged to a different person entirely.

The judge called her Ms. Aularaq. It felt more real than anything else did at this point.

Eugene could call her anything, though. That felt more right, more natural and loving, than asking him to do anything specific did.

She looked around the courtroom and found it a little surreal how many people Billy had managed to get in her corner. Dr. Malloy was able to be called in for his expert opinion and for having known one of Jesse’s other victims, which meant the judge counted his testimony as relevant. That Billy had told him about his secret identity was honestly the wildest part about all of this. If she were him, she wouldn’t have. Billy’s newfound ability to trust people was a little naïve, in her eyes. Billy himself was there in a suit, too, a different one than the one he’d gone to the Spring Formal Prom with Freddy in. She didn’t recognize the too-thin Arab boy beside him, but her lawyer had told her he was another person Jesse had victimized, and he was here to be a character witness against the deceased. Rosa was there to support Billy, while he’d requested the rest of the family not be there – if he had to talk about the things he and Jesse had done in bed, he didn’t want his boyfriend or his siblings there. It was awkward enough to have Eugene present as it was, looking small and young and unbearably sympathetic in a dark green suit. _He’s here. He didn’t have to come, but he came here for me._

Her throat felt tight at the thought. Crying, though, would only make this infinitely worse and uncomfortable for her lawyer and foster brother. She turned her gaze to DJ, who was here despite how much it’d screw him over. He’d covered for her and for Jesse coming and going in and out of the house before. His testimony and written statement about her bloody laundry, bruises and Jesse’s affection towards her was going to make him look like an enabler and get him put in another foster home. No one had asked him to do that. He’d volunteered. _First Eugene, then Billy, then DJ. People are lining up to throw themselves into deep shit to try to help me out._ The thought felt like submerging into a warm bath, after a long walk in the depths of winter. Someone who was more or less a stranger had decided to be here for her, consequences be damned, to keep her from going to jail.

Nobody had asked Thaiv-Hli Xiong to be here either, since she was an officer and could submit a written testimony without being subject to further questioning under county law. She was here regardless, holding her wife’s hand as they waited for the proceedings to start. Officer Delvas was there because as the one who’d taken Billy’s witness statement, he might get called up to verify things. The officer that had the unenviable job of being the first at the scene was there, along with the officer who’d interviewed her after the doctors examined her. Neither of them looked angry or judgmental towards her, despite having seen her covered in blood and screaming a slew of angry, incoherent things. Apparently, as crooked as cops in the continental United States could be, they had room in their heart for people who’d been through what she had.

Despite knowing better, she expected to look around the courtroom and see Jesse there. When she was in holding at a juvenile detention center, awaiting trial, she saw a flash of platinum blond hair and whirled on her heel, ready to bolt before she realized it was another girl, one of the very few people there who was younger than she was. Not a threat, not Jesse, not even male, yet her fists were clenched before she knew it, ready to defend herself against a man who was no longer alive. She had a feeling that she’d be doing that for a long time to come. The court-mandated psychologist, Dr. Trommler, had diagnosed her with PTSD and Depersonalization Disorder, most likely the result of what she’d been through.

 _Traumagenic_ , he’d said. The word seemed fitting in ways she couldn’t put a name to. At this point she herself felt traumagenic, phoenix-like, remade from the ashes of the girl she used to be.

The judge called the court to session, and she gave Billy another look, reconsidering.

Perhaps being remade wasn’t entirely a bad thing.

 

* * *

 

Billy reached out and gently snagged Salem by the wrist.

They were all, collectively, exhausted from what had turned into a six hour long trial. Everyone had vomited up ugly, hideous truths sharp and painful as sharp glass mixed with acid, and he was too tired to be angry. At the same time, as much as he wanted to get back to Freddy, to the home he’d finally come to call his own and to the family that had opened their hearts to him so completely, he was too worried to let this go. Salem was looking better these days, less emaciated and more merely thin, the dark circles under his eyes reduced to something less alarming and more mild. At the same time, he couldn’t meet Billy’s eyes. Rosa stayed a respectable distance back. She knew this had to be a private conversation, or as private as one could be on the steps of a courthouse.

“Sae,” he said softly, running his thumb back and forth over Salem’s knuckles like he used to when they were dating, “Why didn’t you tell me? If I’d known you had to do _that_ to get Jesse away from me, I never would’ve left.”

“Because you don’t owe anybody a relationship, Beebs,” Salem told him, soft and vulnerable and just as hurt at eighteen by what happened as Billy was at fifteen. “If I’d told you, you would’ve forced yourself to be my boyfriend out of guilt, even if you also hated me for making him leave. Why would I do that to you?”

He didn’t have an answer for that. That didn’t mean he wasn’t concerned as hell, though. “Are… are you gonna be okay?”

“…I think so. It feels better now that I don’t have to pretend it didn’t happen.” He shrugged, managing a small smile. “This, um, this actually isn’t the first time I told somebody. There’s this guy I know from my mosque, well kinda, we used to be friends back when we were younger, and I…” His cheeks went red, and Billy grinned. “We’re… close. It’s complicated. But he’s helped me deal with it.”

“Good. You deserve it.” He pulled him into a quick hug, mindful of the way physical contact might not be what he needed right now. “And I hope it works out with you and your new whatever. Tell him if he hurts you I’m going to have Superman beat his ass.”

Salem laughed, hugging him back briefly. “Baby Bat, _no_. I don’t even know if it’s mutual yet.”

“It will be. You’re a catch.” Billy added, “Not as much as Freddy, but hey, who is?”

They paused a moment, simply looking at each other. As tired and emotionally drained as Salem was, the weight of secrecy was lifted from him, eyes regaining their old spark and smile less and less forced. He looked hopeful. Billy felt that, too, even with full firsthand knowledge of what a long road recovery was. But they weren’t that old, not really; eighteen and fifteen were young enough to get help, talk it out, grow and get themselves together. They’d never get over it, because that wasn’t something that really happened outside of movies. They didn’t need to. What they’d needed all along was closure, which came both in the form of Jesse’s death and in testifying. The confession, not the verdict, was what gave them absolution.

“You’re gonna be okay, Salem. You got this. And you’ve got me, now that I’ve got my head outta my ass. Text me anytime. I mean it,” he added, squeezing his hand one last time, maybe the last time now that they’d both truly moved on to other guys. “Don’t go all lone wolf. It doesn’t work out well, trust me.”

“Yeah, well, same, B.B. You know I’ll always be here for you. But you’ve got a lot of people like that in your life now.” He tilted his head towards Rosa meaningfully, then turned to leave. “Talk to you later, Batsy.”

“Later, Witch City.” Billy watched him go, and felt sure it wouldn’t be the last time.

 

* * *

**ONE MONTH LATER**

 

Freddy and Billy had slept together side by side without getting remotely close to having sex for months.

It wasn’t that Billy wasn’t attracted to him. They were closer than ever, honestly, bonded by the heaviness of it all and the fact no one else understood them quite as well as one another. Billy had taken to holding Freddy’s hand at random times, enjoying the warmth and the feeling of being grounded that it brought. Freddy always leaned his head on Billy’s shoulder as they sat in bed and read stacks of comics together. They were constantly touching, light little brushes of contact that made the world seem real, and whole, and like something worth being in.

Sometimes, though, kissing made him flashback to Jesse, to his strong hands and teeth pulling at his lips demanding to be let in. The first time he woke up with his back to Freddy’s chest, his arms wrapped around him, he would have screamed if he could’ve caught his breath, remembering the skin-breaking bites and shifting hips against his. Sometimes they made out, everything was going great, and then the second Billy got turned on he began overthinking things and it got awkward. They were making progress, though. There weren’t any more panic attacks so bad Billy threw up, and he didn’t dissociate, either. They were doing well enough they almost got to the point of having sex after they got back from the Spring Formal Prom, until Darla wanted to hear about the dance and they sprang apart in absolute terror. That killed the mood for a solid week in and of itself.

Things were good at the house. Darla wasn’t mad about Billy having to ditch their mutual birthday, but she did start demanding they go the restaurant Salem worked at to go get ice cream and kunafa and, most importantly, spend time with each other. Pedro got massively into Just Dance, drums and watching musicals with Darla and Mary, which they sometimes roped Billy and Freddy into. (Except for the musical _Heathers_ , which they all agreed to shelter Darla from.) Mary and Shay worked out college plans to be where they could manage to see each other at least once a month. Shay gave Mary a ring that was essentially an I-promise-we’ll-get-engaged-at-some-point ring, a simple silver ring with an opal in it that was originally Shay’s grandmother’s. Darla got into ballet and Shay and Mary drove her there, looking for all the world like her two moms. Freddy finally caved, watching Darla’s magical girl anime with her, justifying it by loudly declaring that it was the same thing as superhero stuff. Billy tried not to laugh as he commandeered the Netflix account to catch up on all the things he’d missed, rushing from one foster home to another.

Eugene was a mixed bag. He had been ever since his sort-of girlfriend got two years in a mental healthcare facility. It was the best outcome possible; if she’d been fourteen or older she’d have had a much longer sentence, and she was eligible for parole after a year if she made sufficient progress psychologically. The charges had been lowered from murder to manslaughter based on the legal concept of the Battered Woman’s Defense, a reasonable case being made for it being self-defense given how many people knew Jesse to make death threats, and Billy admitting to what happened to Wyatt. The court was merciful upon a girl whose predatory, abusive, grown adult man boyfriend had attempted murder twice (arguably thrice, given he’d choked Billy, too).

None of this made him miss her less. He called her whenever he could, visited her on the same day he visited his mom since they were in two different buildings in the same clump of them in an interconnected psych ward. He sent her books and she wrote fanfic she had him beta read. Billy had no idea why they wanted to write an epic Star Wars/Star Trek crossover, but he’d read it and it was at least interesting. It gave her something to think about that wasn’t where she was locked up and gave Eugene something to think about that was both related to her and happy. They’d been bonded via trauma, too, which Billy could hardly comment on given how that same thing had brought him closer to Freddy.

Thankfully, Eugene had a new roommate to help distract him from his more depressive thoughts.

“I’m stealing your DS,” DJ announced, walking out of Billy and Freddy’s room with it in hand. “We’re doing island tours in Animal Crossing with Darla. That girl’s all about multiplayer,” he grumbled, rolling his eyes fondly.

“You’re just mad because I beat you both,” Darla said serenely, getting matching looks of annoyance from both her brothers.

DJ raised an eyebrow at her, ready to throw down. “The war ain’t over yet, Dee. Prepare to go down.”

Freddy threw up his hands. “Do I not get a say in this? It’s _my_ DS.”

None of them bothered to reply, knee-deep in Animal Crossing related discussion. Billy snickered at Freddy’s annoyed pouting. At first, DJ had been withdrawn around them, much as he was grateful for Victor and Rosa snatching him up. This was the first foster home he’d ever been in that wasn’t a group home of at least sixteen people, and the smallness and familial nature of it seemed to be something he didn’t know what to do with sometimes. Still, he and Eugene liked games, so they’d managed a tentative bond, and everyone loved Darla. He was charmed by her welcome card made out of glitter, yarn and buttons on cardboard, keeping it under his bed to this day. Billy had the strangest sense of déjà vu when he watched DJ switch between keeping his distance and being unable to resist hanging out.

That had been him, once upon a time. Now, he couldn’t imagine walking away from this house full of crazy, loud, geeky, happy, wonderful people. He needed them all. He’d fight for them, no matter how hard. And as weird as things sometimes were between him and Freddy with the aftermath of Jesse’s actions still slowly fading like the last lingering ember of a fire, he would fight for that, too. Billy grabbed Freddy by the hand and tugged him back towards their room.

“They’re all busy,” he said in a low tone, instantly making Freddy’s breath quicken as his meaning landed. “C’mon, while we have the chance.”

“How do you make that sound _hot_?” Freddy asked, equal parts jealous whining and helplessly charmed. He complied quickly, shutting the door and locking it behind them before they could risk another moment of Darla nearly walking in on them. “One day you’re going to teach me your secrets, Billy.”

He snorted. “Dude, for that to happen I’d have to know what I’m doing right in the first place.” Why anybody ever found him hot, he’d never know. He’d asked Salem once via text and gotten ‘IDK’ in response. Ultimately, he guessed it didn’t matter. The important thing was that he had Freddy, and Freddy had him.

They tumbled onto the bed together, more for the sake of it being easier on Freddy’s knee than any actual sexual intent. Billy wasn’t sure how to deal with the flashes of self-loathing that he saw in Freddy when his disability acted up, nor did he know how to contain his anger when Freddy admitted his first foster parents told him disabled people ended up unmarried and alone. He’d resolved to solve these problems by doting on Freddy until he got through to him. Eventually, enough kisses might make him realize he was very much loved and wanted and those people had been full of shit. It’d take time. That was okay. Billy’s issues were taking time, too. He shoved the impatient thoughts away and tangled his hands in his boyfriend’s hair, relishing the softness and the feeling of being pressed against another person. Freddy’s intake of breath as Billy did so was beautifully real, vulnerable without being uneasy, everything Billy had ever wanted in this relationship. From their first kiss after the Superman stunt in the cafeteria Billy had always trained his eyes on Freddy’s face, waiting for any sign of discomfort, only to find Freddy was perfectly fine with everything he did.

Freddy trusted him. The thought rolled over him in waves, still processing months into this relationship, warm and fulfilling, drowning out all the anxiety and echoes of Jesse in his mind.

He kissed him hard and slipped a hand under his waistband, smiling at Freddy’s surprised gasp.

“I love you,” he told him earnestly. There was no manipulation or implicit request to be touched in return in it, no hidden undertones or desperation. He said it only because he meant it, wholly and completely, and he wanted to do this purely because he loved him and he liked making him happy. "I love you so damn much, Freddy. Is this okay?”

His boyfriend had to blink twice and inhale, caught off guard but not unpleasantly so. “I love you too. And yeah. Yeah, this is okay.”

And it was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aularaq can mean 'movement', but can also mean 'to turn around; to change course'.
> 
> I didn't give you all a full trial scene because frankly, I'm not qualified to write one and it would involve a lot of talking about trauma in detail, which we don't need. We've seen enough of that firsthand over the course of this story.
> 
> I realized midway through the ending that the group home would've gotten shut down over this shitshow, so... the Vasquezes got a plus one. It's DJ's reward for testifying in a case where he only had something to lose.
> 
> So... it's done. This long, sometimes rambling, sometimes tangential, deeply personal story is done. Back when I had a tumblr, people on there accused me and this story of supporting and romanticizing abuse. In reality, it does no such thing, and seeing everyone in the comments get that has restored my faith in fandom. Stories of darkness and pain got me through a lot when I was younger, struggling to deal with my own abuse as a CSA survivor and the pain and confusion it wrought on me. Fanfic like this helped me find hope when no one else was offering it to me. I won't pretend I'm as good a writer as those writers were, because I can see a lot of flaws in my own work. But if this story has helped even a few people deal with their own pain or feel less alone the way fanfic did for me, that's all I've ever wanted in my entire life and career as a writer.
> 
> Everyone commenting on this has meant so much to me. You've encouraged me, given me hope, shown me the full capacity people have to be sympathetic, loving, kind and supportive of abuse victims in fiction and reality, and helped me have confidence in my writing again. I'm deeply grateful for every single one of you. And to the people who bookmarked this or left kudos: I see you and the numbers are staggering, humbling and deeply moving. Seeing how many people got onboard with this makes me feel things hard to put into words without rambling at great length. Your support is just as real as that of others, and I thank you for it. Thank you to the commenters, the kudos givers, the bookmarkers, the people who contributed to a view count that still makes me do a double take after all these months. Thank you to all of you.
> 
> This fandom is a blessing in my life. I hope this fanfic can be even a minor blessing to some of you. Happy New Year's Eve Eve, everyone.


End file.
